Warning: SPOILERS for Superman are ahead!
Just like he did in 2004’s I, Robot, Alan Tudyk took part in Superman playing a friendly robot. This one was simply named Four… or at least, that’s how he’s known for most of the 2025 movie. By the end, however, he adopted the name Gary for himself, adding another heartfelt moment to enjoy following the Man of Steel’s over Lex Luthor. As it turns out, though, it wasn’t Superman writer and director James Gunn who came up with the name change, but rather Tudyk himself.
The Resident Alien actor revealed this while speaking with The Direct, first by explaining how he saw Four as the perfected Superman Robot that Clark Kent built in the Fortress of Solitude after the first three didn’t turn out well. That’s why Four is the leader of the automatons that followed. However, Tudyk wanted to infuse his character with a little more personality, which led to this:
But I was like, 'I really would like a name.' And David, Superman, Corenswet, was like, 'Yeah! You should totally have a name.' So I said, 'What about Gary?' And James, like, 'I don't know... Okay, I guess. Let's shoot it.'
Ad-libbing is known to happen during the moviemaking process, but I’m surprised this particular creative beat in Superman came from Alan Tudyk off the top of his head rather than James Gunn including it in the script. It sounds like the filmmaker was initially hesitant to do this, but with lead actor David Corenswet throwing his support behind the idea, Gunn was willing to give it a shot. It ended up paying off, although there had to be talks later about if including Four naming himself Gary in the final cut was worth it. Tudyk continued:
And we shot it, and I thanked him at the premiere, and he said, 'You won't believe how many meetings we had about that name.' He said, 'We went back and forth and back and forth about whether or not that was a time for a joke... should we just be all heart at the end?' And luckily, they put it in because I think it was a heartfelt joke... [Superman] loves that robot. That's one of the reasons why the robot's so likable. It's because Superman loves him. He cares about it, so we care about it as an audience.
Alan Tudyk also mentioned that he didn’t learn that the Gary moment made it into Superman until the movie’s world premiere. Even then, he missed hearing when Superman acknowledged the robot’s new name, and it fellow Firefly alum and Guy Gardner actor Nathan Fillion who clued him in. Hopefully, we’ll see more of Gary if the Fortress of Solitude is revisited in the DCU, be it in a Superman sequel, next year’s Supergirl or some other upcoming DC movie.
Although Superman is still playing in theaters, you’ll be able to purchase the film digitally starting this Friday, August 15. It will then arrive on Ultra-HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD September 23. There’s been no announcement yet about when Superman will become streamable with an HBO Max subscription.
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