Henry Cavill says he never gave up hope that he would play Superman again someday. Yet even he was surprised how emotional the experience was when he finally put the cape back on.
Cavill was working six days a week on Netflix’s The Witcher when a deal came together for him to appear in one scene in Black Adam, he recalled during a conversation with MTV’s Josh Horowitz at the 92nd Street Y on Wednesday evening. He had to get permission from The Witcher team, but as the actor recalled, “It was so top secret we couldn’t tell them what.”
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When he arrived at the Warner Bros. studio in the U.K. for the shoot, he put on a suit that he chose because of its emotional resonance: the costume he wore in 2013’s Man of Steel, his first outing as the hero.
“I chose that one in particular because of the nostalgia attached to the suit,” said Cavill during the conversation, which was a live taping of Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast. “It was incredibly important to me to be standing there and enjoying that moment. That is one of the top moments in my career. It feels great to have the opportunity to wear it again.”
The conversation comes after a newsmaking week for Cavill. The actor returned to the big screen as Superman for the first time in five years in Black Adam. And Monday, he confirmed that he will indeed play Superman in future DC installments, saying in a video posted to social media that what audiences saw in Black Adam was just “a small taste” of things to come.
Cavill was first cast as Superman for Man of Steel, directed by franchise architect Zack Snyder. The DC Universe has gone through seismic shifts since then. Warner Bros. is under new leadership, with Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran named to the top posts at DC under the newly launched DC Studios, which will be home to Cavill’s future Superman outings.
Cavill said he was “very excited” about Gunn’s hiring and joked about rumors that he would join Marvel’s Loki, saying that if Gunn could jump back and forth between Marvel and DC, then perhaps he could too.
Sources have told The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. is taking pitches from writers for a sequel to Man of Steel. Cavill declined to comment when Horowitz asked if there was any news to share in terms of filmmakers or writers: “Right now I can’t share anything, … but in time, I’ll be able to share and everyone will hear all the exciting things to come.”
Filmmaker Snyder sent in a video question from the set of his Netflix movie Rebel Moon, asking Cavill to reflect on their early flying scenes, and ending the video by noting, “I can’t wait to work with you again.”
Cavill responded by thanking the director: “He’s a lovely man, and I am enormously appreciative for everything he’s done for me. … Those are formative memories of mine, career-wise. It is when everything changed. I remember them fondly. … Zack, if you are watching… Thank you, my friend.”
As for his future, Cavill did have some thoughts.
Said the actor: “There is such a bright future ahead for the character, and I’m so excited to tell a story with an enormously joyful Superman.”
