Nicholas Hoult is suiting up for another round in James Gunn’s DCU Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, and he’s not hiding his enthusiasm. The actor’s first outing as Lex Luthor in the 2025 movie release Superman was a resounding success both financially and critically, and, now, Hoult is looking ahead to the future. He is set to return in the upcoming Man of Tomorrow, the officially announced Superman sequel that’s slowly taking shape. And the man under the bald head is speaking about what’s got him “excited” about the upcoming DC movie.
The Mad Max: Fury Road actor talked about his take on DC’s most iconic villain with GQ and discussed why he’s already looking forward to stepping back into the role. While Hoult hasn't seen the script for the sequel just yet, he says the experience of playing Lex left him wanting more:
I haven’t read it yet, but hopefully will soon, so I can’t say anything more than that. But just upon playing the character for the first time in that story, through my research and prep, I feel like there’s a lot more for me to explore and for us to explore. So I’m excited that we are getting the chance to go back and do that.
And that exploration is coming. James Gunn has already teased that the next film will focus on a Superman and Lex Luthor team-up, with the two forced to join forces against a larger threat. Fans have speculated that Brainiac may be the villain this time around, which opens the door for a fresh take on Lex. For the British star, that means playing a version of the character we haven’t seen on the big screen before. That kind of character work feels tailor-made for Hoult’s range.
Fans last saw his Lex in a surprise cameo during Peacemaker Season 2, where he teams up with Rick Flag Sr. to help locate Chris Smith’s Quantum Unfolding Chamber. That team-up with ARGUS hints at even bigger narrative swings ahead, and it’s looking more and more like this iteration of Lex is being positioned to battle something far beyond Metropolis.
Clearly, the role made an impact. Hoult recently described playing a villain as strangely liberating, saying:
I do really enjoy it. I suppose there’s a freedom in playing a villain because there’s nothing you can do that could be wrong. It’s really interesting to try and get into the mindset and psyche of those people and their obsessive nature and their belief system or ideology.
He also mentioned he’d just spoken with Gunn about the sequel. The director has teased that Man of Tomorrow will be as much a Lex movie as a Superman one. If that plays out, we could be looking at a sequel where the so-called villain carries just as much narrative weight as the guy in the cape—and, honestly, that’s the kind of shakeup superhero movies could use, and sets the DC Universe apart from the competition.
For now, fans can revisit Nicholas Hoult in his role as Lex Luthor in both Superman and Peacemaker, as both streaming with an HBO Max subscription.
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