Getting to know the new Superman

In true Clark Kent form, the new Superman would like to correct the record.

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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?"

“He is Superman”

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.