Superman touched down in Los Angeles on Monday, with star David Corenswet debuting his version of Clark Kent — but what if the superhero had been played by Skyler Gisondo?
The actor, who plays Jimmy Olsen in the DC film, recently admitted that when he first heard about the project, he thought he was auditioning for Superman himself, only learning after he sent in a tape that he was up for the role of Jimmy instead.
At the L.A. premiere, Gisondo joked to The Hollywood Reporter that looking back now, Corenswet “was the right guy for the job. And I’m happy to let him get this win, man. He needed it and going into this I was thinking I was going to bulk up too, I was planning on getting really jacked. And then I saw David and he’d only made so much progress and I thought, I don’t want to upstage him, and so I really scaled back and I let him shine.”
Gisondo also teased that when he thought he was being eyed for the lead role, “I thought it would have been a bad casting choice. I sent in the tape thinking, ‘Man, [director] James [Gunn] is always really thinking outside the box, I wouldn’t be my first pick,’ but I really think David is the right guy for the job. I’m so excited for the world to see him in this movie. Within 10 seconds of meeting him you think, ‘Man, this is Superman.’”
Corenswet is joined by Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, with a supporting cast that includes Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Beck Bennett and Wendell Pierce.
Gunn, who wrote and directed the first entry in his and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe, explained at the premiere that he “wanted to show Superman in an intimate way. I wanted to believe Superman, so I wanted to show him in this gigantic DC universe, this magical world that’s like from the comic books, where we’re entering how I entered as a child — with Superman, with superhuman friends, with giant robots, with Kaiju, with all of that. I wanted to have that but at the same time, really get to know him — get to know his personality, who he is, what his relationship with Lois is like, what his beliefs are, what his strengths are, what his flaws are.”
Superman hits theaters on Friday.
Coy Jandreau contributed to this report.