Even before he became the linchpin of a new superhero universe, David Corenswet took great pride in being reliable.
“I don’t know whether I’m a good actor in the sense that I see people onscreen and think, that’s a good actor,” he said. But what he does know, and what he aspires to, is that people can count on him. It’s a reputation Corenswet has cultivated since he was a child actor, when he once delivered his lines so efficiently during a commercial shoot that the crew got to go home early.
“I want people to feel that every day that my name is on the call sheet is going to be a better day — a little bit of an easier day, and maybe a more fulfilling day,” he said.
Now, Corenswet’s reliability will be put to its ultimate test. The 32-year-old is playing the iconic title character in James Gunn’s “Superman” reboot, which arrives in theaters this weekend burdened by big expectations. It’s the first feature from the newly rebranded DC Studios, which previously managed some successes (“Wonder Woman,” “Man of Steel”) and a passel of bruising bombs (“Justice League,” “The Flash,” “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”) in its efforts to keep pace with Marvel’s highly lucrative cinematic universe.
These days, though, even Marvel is facing headwinds: In a market saturated with comic-book content, audiences don’t always show up for cape-and-tights spectaculars the way they used to. Warner Bros. is betting that Gunn, who was hired to co-lead DC Studios after directing Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, can restore the luster to its superhero shingle. But the future of the DC slate, including next year’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” hinges largely on just how high “Superman” can soar.
If Gunn’s reboot is the foundation for his ambitious, yearslong plan to revitalize DC, then Corenswet is its cornerstone, and his take on the character couldn’t be more different from the moody brute Henry Cavill played in recent “Superman” films. Buoyant and good-natured, Corenswet’s version sees the best in everyone, winces at bad language (he’s more likely to exclaim, “Golly!” or “What the hey, dude!”), and is so devoted to doing the right thing that in one chaotic action scene, he even swoops in to save a poor squirrel from being crushed.
But this is no boring Boy Scout: Corenswet brings plenty of charm and humor to his portrayal and, during tetchy tête-à-têtes between Superman and his girlfriend, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), shows just how troubled the character can become when his unsolicited do-gooding has real-world repercussions.
“Oftentimes Superman, in media, has been just this perfect blank slate without a personality,” Gunn said. “And that’s not David’s Superman at all.”
I FIRST MET Corenswet in late June, just after he had landed in Los Angeles following early press-tour stops in Manila and Rio de Janeiro. He’d gone straight from the airport to an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and the next afternoon, he told me the whirlwind schedule was so disorienting that if someone claimed he’d actually spent the past three days in Los Angeles, he might have believed it.
Still, if Corenswet was running on fumes, it didn’t show. The 6-foot-4 actor greeted me with a firm handshake, his dark blue eyes blazing and his deep voice booming. Over the next hour, he was disarmingly direct, speaking with a steady clarity rarely belied by an errant “uh” or “um.” (If he were ever prone to those verbal tics, Corenswet’s stint at Juilliard — the alma mater of his caped predecessor, Christopher Reeve — probably trained it out of him.)
Corenswet’s first major leading role came in Ryan Murphy’s period drama “Hollywood,” a TV series set during the golden age of the film industry — fitting, since the actor’s own tastes run more to TCM than TikTok. In one recent clip that went viral from the “Superman” press junket, Brosnahan promised to explain “Brat summer” to him, while in another, Corenswet stumbled while reading the names of the musicians Doechii and SZA, then quipped, “No Dean Martin? No George Gershwin?”
In other words, while his real-life powers may be limited to the super-stamina required for a global press tour, Corenswet’s man-out-of-time vibe has plenty in common with his character.
“He’s very much like Superman,” Gunn said, “in that he seems very earnest and odd, more like an alien than you would think.”
Though people might expect a rising actor on the brink of a breakthrough to live in Los Angeles or New York, Corenswet has instead moved back to the outskirts of Philadelphia, where he grew up. He initially relocated to start a family with his wife, the actress Julia Best Warner, but he hopes that continuing to live away from the spotlight will keep him grounded in the months ahead.
“I don’t really like going out,” he told me. “I like being at home, I like the inside of hotel rooms. I like the woods.” And if he starts getting recognized on grocery runs? “We’ll see what happens,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get some Groucho Marx glasses and a mustache to walk around in.”
Gunn, who has spent the past few weeks watching fans fall for Corenswet during their press tour, foresees an unavoidable rise in fame for his leading man.
“I think he’s the biggest movie star in the world,” Gunn said. “I just don’t think people know it yet.”
OTHER PEOPLE IN Corenswet’s orbit have long had a similar hunch. His manager was an assistant on Henry Cavill’s team when that British actor booked the Superman role on “Man of Steel,” and he sensed the same potential in Corenswet early on: Whenever he introduced the young actor to industry figures, he would tease that Corenswet was the guy to cast if Superman was ever rebooted.
“I never got my hopes up at all,” Corenswet said, “but there was always a glimmer in my rep’s eyes.”
That turned into something more than a glimmer when Gunn took over DC Studios and announced that “Superman” would be his next major project. Still, years of expectations added immense pressure to Corenswet’s audition: “I said to my wife, ‘There’s something sad about this: As long as they weren’t remaking ‘Superman,’ it was always fun to fantasize about, but now I’m going to audition and I’m not going to get it.’”
At that time, Gunn wasn’t much more optimistic about finding his lead. He recalled just how arduous the casting search for “Guardians of the Galaxy” had been, with hundreds of actors auditioning to play Star-Lord until, after many months, Chris Pratt finally convinced the doubtful director. Gunn warned his DC Studios co-chief, Peter Safran, that he wouldn’t move forward with “Superman” at all unless they could find the right man to embody him.
“And I wasn’t sure if that person existed,” Gunn said.
For his initial self-tape, a long scene of Lois interviewing Superman, Corenswet read with his wife and aimed not to channel a superhero but the old-school appeal of Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant. Later, he second-guessed that choice: “I thought, I’m reading into this something that isn’t there. But as an actor, I’ve auditioned many thousands of times for things, and one thing that you learn is to let go of any seductive desire to give them what they want. When you’re lucky enough to see something in the scene — a choice, an angle — go for it and go strong.”
He sent the tape off and tried to forget it, assuming the role would go to someone else. But while filming a small part in “Twisters” a month later, he learned that on the strength of his self-tape, he had become one of three finalists to play the lead in “Superman.” Two were Englishmen: the theater actor Tom Brittney and Nicholas Hoult, the best-known name who would later be cast as Lex Luthor. Still, Corenswet figured that being the only American in contention might help: “I hoped there was some sentiment that Superman should come back to his home country of origin.”
He was given the script and three weeks to prepare for a screen test, but to move on to the final phase of casting, he also had to sign a contract agreeing to take the role if offered. “And I’m somebody who, if somebody says a choice is a no-brainer, I take that as a signal to think extremely hard about it,” he said.
That choice was further complicated just three days later, when Corenswet’s wife told him that she was pregnant. “Having a kid is enough of a project in itself,” he said. “But to do it at the same time that your husband’s going to start filming what will almost certainly be the biggest job of his life?” Though they had just moved back to Philadelphia, “Superman” would shoot in Atlanta and surely change their lives forever.
“It’s very easy to think about all the wonderful ways this could change your life and career — and, oh, the money!” he said. “But when the easy conversation is so exciting, I want to have the hard conversation: Let’s talk about what could go wrong.”
Gunn’s script scared him a little simply because it was so different from anything he’d seen before: In the first 10 minutes alone, there was a caped super-dog and a quartet of robotic assistants. But also, what if the movie turned out so well that no one could think of him as anything but Superman?
“To that,” Corenswet said, “I always refer to the great Christopher Reeve, who said in an interview something along the lines of, ‘If this is the only part I get to play for the rest of my life, it’ll be a great honor to have such an impactful and rich character be your sole partner.’”
Ultimately, Corenswet and his wife decided to go for it. For the screen test, he quietly slipped away from “Twisters” and flew to Los Angeles, where he donned Cavill’s old Superman suit for a costume fitting. His team encouraged him to sneak a selfie, but he thought better of it at the last minute, figuring there was better karma to be earned by being present and following the rules.
Most of the first morning was spent auditioning with Emma Mackey, another actress vying for Lois, and Gunn frequently stopped and restarted the scene, offering new directions every few lines. That might have stymied other actors but it energized the theatrically trained Corenswet, since it reminded him of the first rehearsal to get a play on its feet.
“It wasn’t evaluation anymore, it was work,” he said. “And I love work.”
A stunt test followed where Corenswet was strung up on wires; when one of the stunt men whispered in his ear, “You looked like Superman up there,” he felt a swell of confidence. After calling Corenswet back to test him opposite Brosnahan, Gunn agreed.
“David, at the end of the day, was the only one who worked,” Gunn said. “There were other very good actors. But Superman was David.”
Almost everything changed over the next year as Corenswet trained six days a week to put on muscle, and then, as he began to shoot “Superman,” his daughter was born. “I went to work and I played Superman,” he said, “and then I came home and got spat up on and changed diapers and woke up at 2 o’clock in the morning and tried to take the best care of my wife that I could.”
Now, when people warn Corenswet that things are about to get heady, he’s skeptical. Family life still grounds him.
“All I can think about is I’m still going to be changing diapers,” he said. “I’m still going to be making breakfast, I’m still going to be frustrated when my insurance company bills me the wrong amount, or the car breaks down and I’ve got to figure that out.”
He grinned. “But mostly, what I’m thinking about is just being back at home with my kid.”
A WEEK AND A HALF LATER, when I first laid eyes on Corenswet at the after-party for the Los Angeles premiere of “Superman,” he was down on one knee in his three-piece suit, in rapt conversation with a Make-a-Wish child who had a Superman cape tied to his wheelchair. Later, I watched from a distance as Corenswet approached two cater-waiters to personally thank them.
Eventually, I made my way over to say hello, and Corenswet greeted me with a warm bro-hug. He told me that he had just watched “Superman” for the first time that night. Though some of his castmates had chosen to screen the film weeks earlier, Corenswet reasoned that since this was the biggest project he’d ever led, why not experience it for the first time at the premiere, a setting as maximal as the movie?
“I’m glad I waited,” he said. “If I had seen it too early, I might have felt more self-conscious and less what I felt tonight, which is the spirit of the crowd rooting for Superman up there.”
He described it as though he had watched something totally separate from his own performance; in some ways, it struck me like Clark Kent writing about Superman for The Daily Planet. Corenswet nodded when I told him.
“That’s what I try to do, is to just watch the character,” he said. “And Superman is such a distinctive person in his own right. He’s bigger than any one person who plays him.”
It reminded me of what Corenswet said the first time we’d met, when he was recounting why he ultimately said yes to the screen test despite his reservations.
“Honestly, if this is the last role that I ever got to play, somebody’s got to do it, and I feel so humbled and grateful that I get to be the guy,” he said.
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
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