Meet actor David Corenswet, cinema’s new Superman

In true Clark Kent form, the new Superman would like to correct the record. David Corenswet gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly in 2019 where he said his “pie in the sky ambition” was to play Superman. At that point, the role was not on the market. And Corenswet, a Julliard graduate and Philadelphia native, was just making a name for himself in the industry, with plum breakout roles in two Ryan Murphy Netflix series: “The Politician” and “Hollywood.” Tall, dark, and you know, handsome, people had told him that he looked like Superman for a long time. He did not, he told The Associated Press in a recent interview, think that he was going to get the chance to play him.

But a few years later he was actually cast to lead James Gunn’s “Superman” which will begin a new, hopefully high-flying, era for the DC universe of films when it hits theaters on July 11. And that once innocent quote took on a life of its own. Many headlines and stories misinterpreted the phrase and wrote that he said it was his dream role, as though he’d manifested it into existence.

“I said it was my pie in the sky ambition, which I meant to mean that there was no (expletive) way it was ever going to happen,” Corenswet, 31, said. “I sort of was thinking of it as, ‘Oh, who wouldn’t love to get to play an iconic role like that? Wouldn’t it be amazing and impossible if we lived in a universe where that could even be considered?’”

Right around the time when Gunn was starting to think about casting his new Superman movie, he decided to watch his friend Ti West’s movie “Pearl.” In that darkly comedic horror, Corenswet stood out to him as an interesting and charismatic presence. He played a projectionist at a local movie theater who catches Pearl’s attention (and, later, faces her wrath). West had nice things to say about him too.

“David was one of the very first auditions that I got,” Gunn said. “Instantly, it was a relief because he had a playful charm about him that was not evident in ‘Pearl.’ He had a sense of humor. That made me go, ‘Ooh, this might be a really good match.’”

That was just the beginning of the long casting process. Even Nicholas Hoult, who was ultimately cast as Lex Luthor, was up for the part. And though it was “extensive,” Corenswet said it was one of the most “satisfying audition processes” he’s ever gone through — not because he booked the role, but because he felt he got the opportunity to show them what he had to offer.

Gunn laughed that Corenswet actually has a lot of Superman in him. “Superman is a square and David is a square,” Gunn said. “He listens to American Songbook. Like Dean Martin and Cole Porter. That’s what he listens to on his iPad. That’s weird. But oh, so Superman.”

When Gunn called him with the good news, the first person he told was his wife. The second was his sister, who couldn’t pick up the phone because she was on a golf course.

“She texted, ‘Is it possible that was a phone call with super good news?’” he said. “I said, ‘Yes. Super good news.’”

It may be something of a Superman tradition to try on your predecessor’s costume during a screen test. Henry Cavill did it with Christopher Reeve’s, and Corenswet did it with Cavill’s, which he called a “marvel of engineering.”

But the first time Corenswet put on his own Superman costume was not some magical, transportive moment. In fact, he said, it was “wonderfully mundane.” The suit was still in its beginning stages, not totally put together and even a little small, as he’d already started putting on weight for the role.

Associated Press