Inside 'Superman Returns': Director Bryan Singer Takes On The Ultimate Comic Book Icon
By Scott Huver, Hollywood.com Staff
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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Director/producer/writer Bryan Singer |
Can the director who made the modern age’s most edgy, angry and angst-ridden comic book superhero, Wolverine, become one of the big screen’s most beloved bad boy-good guys breathe new life into the granddaddy of all costumed, super-powered crime fighters, the old school, boy scout-ish Last Son of Krypton himself? Even Bryan Singer had his own doubts, as he reveals to Hollywood.com as he discussing bringing the Man of Steel back to the cinema after nearly two decades for Superman Returns.
Hollywood.com: How much big-picture perspective are you allowed to give yourself when you're working here as both a filmmaker and also a huge fan of both the character and the original film franchise—not to mention there’s so much history and expectation riding on this?
Bryan Singer: It's a delicate balance, which I learned while making the first two X-Men films, and I hope that I've succeeded. But it's a constant balance.
HW: And this one, with the amazing legacy of Superman in comics and on film, has got even more riding on it than your X-Men films did.
BS: I agree. I agree, because it's been 17 years.
HW: Were you terrified going in, or at any point along the way?
BS: Constantly. Constantly debating the nostalgia over what an audience expects today from Superman, and what people who grew up with the character expect from Superman. I want this to be a movie where teenagers will go to and say, “Wow, it's cool,” and that they've never seen things like this happen on a screen before. But at the same time I want a grandparent to be able to bring their grandkids to go see it and each have a special and giving experience. You're never going to please anyone all the time, but when it comes to Superman you have to please a lot of people.
HW: Can you talk about the casting process for a movie like this and the challenges that you have in finding the right actors to portray iconic characters?
BS: Well, because they exist in your collective consciousness I've found it better, in the case of Wolverine and also with Superman, to cast people who are not necessarily recognized or well known. Therefore, it isn't such-and-such playing Superman or Wolverine. You feel like your watching Wolverine, or you feel like you're watching Superman. He's Superman, and not such-and-such as Superman. That's not any particularly original wisdom on my part. Casting Christopher Reeve—he was the same age [as Brandon Routh]. Same situation. A different background, but similar circumstances.
HW: What was about Brandon that struck you as Superman? You must've looked at hundreds of people and their audition tapes.
BS: I did, yeah. There was something there on the tape, and it wasn't a particularly good one, the first one. It was an audition that he had come in for—it was for a prior incarnation of the role. It was a test that he had done. There was something about his eyes and something about his vulnerability. There is something about his character, his quality, his presence and his stature. So there was something about him in the take. It's maybe the way he said something, or the way that he carried himself with this sort of vulnerability that interested me. Then I looked at another take, and in the other take he was wearing a red shirt, as I remember it. It could've been a blue shirt, but I think it was a very bright red shirt and he was doing more face-on to the video-camera and that got me going. I thought, “I at least have to meet this guy before I go on my location scout to Australia.” So I went to a coffee shop and I met him, and that's when the true process in my mind clicked. I knew that he was the guy.
HW: Did you know off the bat what sort of story that you were going to tell going into Superman Returns? Was it always your specific intention to honor the original Richard Donner film?
BS: Yes. Not a retelling of Donner's movie, but something that would celebrate his movie. But at the same time, I wanted to offer something for today's audience and take today's technology and actually apply it.
HW: The film seems poised to fly through the roof, so talk of a sequel must be buzzing? Will you be back for a second?
BS: I don't know. Unlike actors who sign multi-picture deals, I do things one at a time, because you never know how you're going to feel after you're done and you don't want to commit yourself. So right now we're discussing if and when that would be. You want to. of course, top yourself. I tried to do that with X-Men, make a bigger, better movie. So I would probably try to do that ultimately—trying to do the same thing. So who knows how difficult it will be.
HW: You were set to direct the third X-Men film when the opportunity to make Superman Returns came about. Having made that decision, what did you think about the the third film that was ultimately made?
BS: I loved it. I thought that it was great. You had so many characters that have to be serviced, and then you have to introduce new characters. It is a monumental task, and on that level I was incredibly impressed. I saw it and I had a great night seeing it because I ran into Brett [Ratner].
HW: Even though they both come from the pages of comic books, the universe of the X-Men and the universe of Superman seem diametrically opposite.
BS: Exactly. That's what kind of made it appealing to me, the fact that in X-Men you have a very normal world with very cynical characters who trying to fit in, in a normal world. And here we have an idealistic character trying to live and exist in a cynical world. That's kind of the fun of it for me after spending six years in the X-Men universe. That was different for me and made it fun, and plus I'm a huge Superman fan. I love Superman.
Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2006- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved