Skyler Gisondo plays Jimmy Olsen, a junior reporter at the Daily Planet, and one of Clark Kent’s charismatic co-workers. Jimmy is dazzlingly handsome and is depicted as the office stud, often drawing giggly, flirtatious looks from the women he works with. Gisondo plays Jimmy as a little clueless and certainly lacking guile. Jimmy also has a contact inside Lex Luthor’s minions. It seems Lex (Nicholas Hoult) is now dating Eve Techmacher (Sara Simpaio), one of Jimmy’s ex-flings. Eve wants to reconnect with Jimmy, and feeds him information in hopes that she’ll get a date out of it. Jimmy rebuffs her advances, a little overwhelmed by her outsize personality.
Jimmy Olsen is a long-standing supporting player within Superman lore, and he has shown up in just about every TV and film version of “Superman” to have come out in the last eight decades. Marc McClure played Jimmy in Richard Donner’s 1978 “Superman,” and was the only common actor between that film and 1984’s “Supergirl.” Michael Cassidy played the character in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Back in the 1950s, Jimmy even starred in his own comic book called “Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen,” a surreal title that often saw Jimmy embroiled in sitcom shenanigans; one time, Jimmy almost married an ape!
The new “Superman” film has been a hit, and sequels are inevitable. This means that Gisondo will have more opportunities to play Jimmy and, it is hoped, expand on his skills and personal adventures. Indeed, Gisondo recently spoke with Variety about playing Jimmy Olsen again, and he declared what he wanted for his character. Notably, he wanted Olsen, a photographer, to spend more time out in the field, proving his journalistic mettle.
