Superman star David Corenswet has been praised by director James Gunn for not taking his yelled instructions “personally” on the set of the comic book reboot.
Known for his work on Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, Gunn is believed to have auctioned 400 actors for the film’s titular role.
Speaking to GQ, Corenswet discussed his unique relationship with the director.
“I think in a lot of ways, James and I are made for each other,” he said. “James has this habit of, as you’re working on the scene, he’ll sit back by the monitors on the God mic and he’ll yell directions at you, which is not how directors generally work.”
While this “is something that would throw lots of actors off”, Corenswet said he was not bothered by Gunn’s yelling during filming.
“The second that happened, I went, OK, this is going to be great because I have no idea what I’m doing. I desperately need a director,” the actor admitted. “I need a director who knows what they want and is willing to say it out loud without too much politeness and without beating around the bush. If I’m no good, tell me I’m no good, and then let’s work together to make me good.”
Corenswet said this dynamic between the two helped to define their relationship.
“After we finished shooting, we were hanging out and [James] affectionately — I think — described me,” Corenswet said. “He [Gunn] said a very nice thing: ‘You’re a filmmaker, and so you want to be involved in the filmmaking and you want to help make the film as good as possible.’ Then he said, ‘I think you’re also like a kid sticking his finger in light sockets and sometimes I gotta slap you on the wrist and say stop f***ing doing that.’”
Speaking about Corenswet, Gunn said: “Sometimes his questions are great, and I totally see where they make him better, and because they make him better, they make the movie better. But every once in a while, it’s just one question too many, and it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, just, David, stop, stop, for a minute.’
“And the beautiful thing about me and David is that he knows that about himself and he knows where my limits are. And when I say, ‘David, shut the f**k up,’ David totally gets it and does not take that personally.”
He added: “We have a really, to me, beautiful relationship in that way because I’m used to being very sensitive with actors, and you have to be by default, because many actors are incredibly sensitive because they’re putting their emotions on the line onscreen. But with David, he’s not that way. He’s not sensitive like that.”
Superman, starring Corenswet alongside Nicholas Hoult and Rachel Brosnahan, will be released in cinemas on 11 July.
The reboot has been met with positive reviews, and at the time of writing, the film has a score of 83 per cent on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
In a review of Superman for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey said: “Corenswet, who’s such a natural fit for the part that it’s a little scary, lends him an endearing, almost childlike restlessness; Brosnahan pushes Lois’s internal conflict between love and journalistic duty; Hoult goes for spittle-flecked insecurity ...
“Superman is conscious enough of its own history to work in elements of John Williams’s 1978 theme. But this is, distinctly, still a James Gunn film in a genre where authorial voice is vanishingly hard to find.”
