The 34-year-old British actor Nicholas Hoult kicked off production last week on Warner Bros. Discovery’s next big bet: “Superman” with director James Gunn and actors David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan. The star of “About a Boy,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and Hulu series “The Great” recently went on Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast and talked a bit about preparing for the role of the evil mastermind Lex Luthor.
First, he complimented his new boss Gunn for making the audition process fun. He said he enjoyed the “Guardians of the Galaxy” auteur’s method of “try[ing] things in the moment, just shouting out from the monitors, ‘Say this line. Do this! Do that!’”
Then he added that even though Luthor is better known for his brains rather than his brawn, Hoult has been hitting the weights. “There’s that bit in ‘All-Star Superman’ [the Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely comic book run that has served as an inspiration for Gunn’s script] where he talks about his muscles being real and hard work and all that,” Hoult said. “I kind of took that as a little bit of fuel for the fire,” then joked that there aren’t likely to be too many shirtless scenes.
Hoult then saluted Rosenbaum for his years of playing Lex Luthor on “Smallville,” noting that it was his introduction to DC Comics lore. “That was the show I would watch and see my first iterations of Superman and Lex and all those stories. I’ve since seen Richard Donner’s movies and all the other ones and kind of seen some of the other performances but you’re like the one. … It’s the best,” he said.
In addition to Rosenbaum and now Hoult, the devious founder of LexCorp (who was President of the United States for a few years) has been played by Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, and Jesse Eisenberg in feature films, John Shea, Jon Cryer, and Titus Welliver on television, and voiced by Clancy Brown, Powers Boothe, Chris Noth, and Anthony LaPaglia among others in animation.
“Superman” is not Hoult’s first superhero rodeo. The actor played Hank McCoy a/k/a Beast in “X-Men: First Class” and three follow-ups. He’s also portrayed several individuals nearly as famous as Superman’s fiercest foe: J.D. Salinger in “Rebel in the Rye,” J.R.R. Tolkien in “Tolkien,” and Nikola Tesla in “The Current War.”
“Superman” will be bestowed unto theaters by our Kryptonian elders on July 11, 2025.
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