Man of Steel is in theaters today, and lead star Henry Cavill (who plays Superman himself) knew that fans of the caped crusader would put pressure on him to get the character right.
Speaking with Hypable and other members of the press at their junket earlier this month, Cavill admitted that the responsibility of taking on someone like Superman is “enormous.”
“The realiziation that it really really matters meant that I wanted to put the most amount of work to representing the character properly. And that especially applied when I was working out in the gym. When you feel like you can’t push any harder, or you can’t lift any more weight, you think, ‘Well hold on, I’ve gotta look like Superman. There are a bunch of people who are relying on me to be that super hero.’ And so, it really helped out those extra few reps and just become that character.”
Though weight training was certainly an important part of preparing so that he gets the look right, Cavill admitted that for the core of the story he didn’t pull from the old Superman iterations. “When you see Clark traveling through the world trying to work out what and who and why he is, I didn’t go to source material for that. I just thought about – I applied my own life to it. As actors, it’s quite a lonely existence unless you have someone traveling with you the entire time. You spend a lot of time by yourself, and you meet new people, you make temporary family, and then you never see them again aside from the odd press conference. You just apply that to the character and that’s exactly what he experiences. New groups of people constantly, and then disappearing and having to introduce himself to these other people and prove to them he’s a nice guy. And then he disappears again. It’s the lonely aspect I applied instead of original material.”
Cavill had a interesting comparison to use, which prompted co-star Russell Crowe (who plays Jor-El) to answer the same question with an honest answer. “I’ve never seen any other Superman movie,” he confessed. “I hadn’t seen any of the ones with that fellow, or that young fellow. I don’t have any references in terms of cinematic experience. The only Superman reference I have was the 1950s black and white TV show that was on TV after school when I was a kid. I don’t have anything to draw on. The simple thing for me was, I read the script, I thought it was a complex and really cool story in and of itself. And I thought the problems that Jor-El face in terms of his decisions as a father was a very interesting thing to do, so that’s why I got involved.”
Man of Steel is in theaters across the globe today. See more from our time with the Man of Steel cast where Amy Adams talks about what’s unique about Lois Lane in this Superman story. Also be sure to see our Man of Steel review.
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