Superman and Lex Luthor recently came together to talk it out.
Specifically actor Brandon Routh, who played the Kal-El/Superman in Bryan Singer’s 2006 film “Superman Returns,” and “Smallville” regular Michael Rosenbaum who played Lex Luthor on that series, sat down together recently for an interview on Rosenbaum’s Inside of You YouTube channel to discuss Routh’s work.
Both actors have more recently played other DC characters, Rosenbaum has voiced The Flash in animation many times whilst Routh has been playing Ray Palmer/The Atom on The CW’s “Arrow” and “Legends of Tomorrow” for the past six years and his final regular appearance in that role airs shortly.
Routh and his wife Courtney Ford, who plays Ray Palmer’s love interest Norah Darkh on ‘Legends,’ are both exiting the series and Routh says he’s still processing the impact of the departure:
“[I was notified] before we started production, but it was not well-handled, and so that has been something my wife and I are both still working through. It’s been a huge transition time for us these last eight, nine, ten months. So going, how was I going to find the joy in that, knowing this thing was looming? But I worked to just be with the crew that had become my family and my cast that had become my family and experience that, and just be there in the interactions with the people.”
Routh previously replied to a fan on an Instagram post that his exit was “not my choice”. In the Rosenbaum interview he was asked if he would return to which he says: “That’s kind of a bridge that I will decide to cross when I get there.”
Talk also touched upon his work in “Superman Returns,” the first of what was hopped to be multiple films. Reviews and box-office were both good, but not great and a sequel never ended up panning out. Then of course there’s the issue of the film’s director Bryan Singer, and of the man Routh says Singer was good to him but added: “he wasn’t always the kindest person to everyone”. As for the sequel never happening, he says:
“The end of my run as Superman, Superman Returns…that did not pan out the way I thought it was going to. The way everyone around me thought it was going to and so I really had to come to terms with a lot of that. There was no sequel. You know the movie was widely well-reviewed. People liked the movie. It made almost $400 million worldwide but that wasn’t enough and it was a very slow fizzle out over the possibility of a sequel over the next two/three years. And I did everything I could do in my world to help make it happen which is a story for another time.”
Routh did however get to strap on the Superman costume again albeit briefly for the recent “Crisis on Infinite Earths” mini-series on The CW.
