Superman isn’t the only thing that returns in the new movie Superman Returns. The entire tone and style of the franchise born in Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman: The Movie is back thanks to director Bryan Singer’s love of all things Superman. Singer and his super cast showed up for interviews at a recent press junket for Superman Returns, and here's what they had to say:
“I’m a big fan of the Donner film,” Singer said. “I think what Donner did at that time was kind of summarize what had been done in the original comics and the Fleischer cartoons and the original series and the radio show. I think he had crystallized a lot of that and I didn’t want to retell the origin story. I think if you’re over the age of 25 you know the original Superman. Somewhere you remember it. If you’re under the age of 25 you know Smallville or you just know something about it so I never wanted to tell an origin story. If I was going to tell a return story, I had to pick a place to jump off so I chose Donner’s film that I love so much. You know, there’s different designs. The design is very much a nod to the early comics, the art deco and all of that. When it came to the Fortress of Solitude and even the casting of Brandon, it’s very much [production designer] John Barry and of course Christopher Reeve things like that come to mind. It has to encompass all of that.”
Newcomer Brandon Routh knew he had big shoes to fill, and he embraced them. “It was a great mantel to be able to take on really, an amazing legacy,” Routh said. “I had seen the film many times and [Reeve] is my Superman so he was always in my mind. When I first read the script I was picturing him because I hadn’t played the character yet. He was my Superman and he was in my mind and his presence is felt I think in the film in fleeting pieces. The film is written to be the vague sequel to the first two films. Inheritably in the script there are many homages in the character and especially written from that character so there are similarities because of that. The only thing that was done really only to mimic Chris’s performance is pushing the glasses up with the forefinger. I did that sometimes and sometimes Bryan would love a shot and I didn’t do it you know he’d tell me to do it because it fit in a certain shot or sometimes I adjusted the glasses like that.”
Looking like Reeve, though, was not what made Singer cast Routh. “It’s uncanny isn’t it?” Singer said. “It’s actually not what motivated me to cast him. It just was part of a package. Again, he has to look and sound as though he’s stepped out of your collective memory. Part of it is Christopher Reeve and part that is George Reeves. Part of it that is the height, the character of voice, the high voice, the low voice. So that informed my decision.”
Singer made Kevin Spacey a world famous villain in The Usual Suspects, so he was the first choice for Lex Luthor. Spacey, who has avoided villains since the year of Suspects and Se7en, was happy to tap the old well for his old friend.
“I think in Lex's case, there must be something about him that loves a challenge,” Spacey said. “I think he says it at one point, a form of it, which is it's mind over matter, it's intelligence over brawn. But you know, when you play a character, like you'd be playing Iago in Othello, you're not thinking, ‘Oh, I'm playing this villain, this evil character.’ You're trying to play what each scene is about and what the character's trying to get. I think that it's fun for an audience I think to be able to categorize. But as an actor I think you have to be quite careful about it, because otherwise you'll just be twisting your mustache. And I had no hair to twist.”
For the role of Lois Lane, Kate Bosworth came to Singer’s attention through Spacey’s own movie, Beyond the Sea. When they got to work together again, they had a jolly old time. “It was fun because in Beyond the Sea he was directing it and producing it and starring in it, so he dawned a lot of hats in that and was juggling a lot of balls,” said Bosworth. “In this one I got to work with him as purely just on an acting level and that was really neat. It was very different experience, actually. It was just as wonderful and amazing. I love Kevin. But, you know, we played love interests. In Beyond the Sea he was my husband and in this one he’s my archenemy. That was so fun for us to play on and laugh about.”
For Spacey’s reunion with Singer, little had changed. “It is the same guy,” Spacey said. “It was like a day hadn't gone by, for both of us. I mean, he had obviously more money and more tools at his disposal, and more toys to play with, but he's the same guy he was ten years ago. For us, it was a great joy, because it wasn't just Bryan and me, but his cinematographer, costume designer, John Ottman the editor and composer, so it felt like the family was coming back together.”
The actors in Superman Returns are not just pawns in that toy box, because Singer emphasized the emotional story within the major special effects set pieces. “The whole thing about action and adventure, it only really works if you care about the people that it’s happening too,” Singer said. “The great thing about science fiction and fantasy is you can tell human stories from a complete unique perspective. If you go back and watch the original Star Trek series, if you go back and watch Star Wars, it’s all there. All the human, myth, love all that stuff and yet space ships and stuff. And that’s what great and that’s what intrigues me about this. I want to make a love story. I’ve never made a chick flick. I want to make something that my mother and father will tear [up] watching and yet I love that science fiction and fantasy. Just love it. So how do I merge these two things so that the teenager in me will want to run out and see it, but at the same time a grandparent can take the grandkids to see it?”
In that emotional story, with Superman finding Lois married to another man in his absence, Routh got to put his own touch on the icon. “That has to do with the script,” Routh said. “It allowed me to do that which was fantastic because we really get to see the character mature and deal with some things that I think as an audience member really pull us in. I think Superman's journey is to become comfortable on earth. Of course he's got his role as earth's greatest protector but he also wants to be as happy as he can and if that happens to be with Lois then he's going to find a way. It might not be easy but that's the journey, so it was great to be able to play that.”
Superman Returns opens June 28.
