After years of trying to get the Superman franchise back on its feet, British actor Henry Cavill was brought in to fill out the red-and-blues. He's strapped on the cape to play Superman/Clark Kent in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, which will take to the skies in June of 2013. While Cavill definitely fills out the tights well, we've got a loooooong wait to find out if he can become Superman for this generation in the same way Christopher Reeve did for mine. At the very least, I'd just like to get a new Superman flick that I can do better than damn with faint praise.

But as it turns out, Cavill had near misses with two other iconic roles...well, one iconic role and one sparkly tween-baiting vampire, anyway. Cavill appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night, and during the second half of the interview he told Leno that he came thisclose to playing Bond-James-Bond in Casino Royale, making it to the final two with Daniel Craig. Having loved Cavill in The Tudors, I can totally see him making a solid Bond, especially now that he's proven he can bulk up with the best of them. Of course, Craig also completely won me over with Casino Royale, so perhaps it's for the best. Although if Cavill had landed the role of the superspy, maybe we somehow would have avoided Quantum of Solace...

As for the other high-profile role? Supposedly Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer was keen to cast Cavill as everybody's favorite jailbait-romancing vampire, Edward Cullen. Why he "missed out" on giving Kristen Stewart goo-goo eyes? Apparently by the time the movie began casting, he was too old to begin the training...er, to play the role.

Here's part of Cavill's interview with Leno where you can hear his comments on both roles, as well as an early run-in with Russell Crowe.