Dual role poses great challenge

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 15

Dual role poses great challenge

When Christopher Reeve signed to play the title role in “Superman,” the movie, one of the most intensive talent searches ’.n screen history finally came to an end.

ouring a two year span, almost every star in Hollywood who remotely fitted the Superman image, and scores of unknowns, were remoured to have won the role.

The producers composed “short . lists” of actors which resembled a small town telephone directory and filmed enough screen test footage to release another two dozen features. The search narrowed down to someone who was young, handsome, muscular, magnetic, unknown to most moviegoers yet dramatically well-seasoned. It was while pondering these contradictory characteristics that the producers and Richard Donner, through casting director Lynn Stalmaster met Christopher Reeve in New York and whisked him to London for a screen test. First reaction — he looked the role. Second reaction — his acting credentials, particularly for a 24-year-old, were remarkable. (He had recently costarred on Broadway with Katharine Hepburn.) The clincher came when Reeve’s test was screened for key executives of Warner Bros., which would release “Superman” in most of the world. They found it difficult to accept that two different sequences, one devoted to Superman, the other to his bumbling alter ego, Clark Kent, featured the same actor. Reeve accepted the role

without hesitation. But he was realistic about what awaited him. “There’s hardly anyone in the world who doesn’t know Superman,” the dark-haired, New Yorkborn actor points out. “My performance wouldn’t single-handedly make a movie a success. But it could sure as hell go a long way toward ruining it. If anyone out there in the audience said, 'Hey.

Margot Kidder plays the role of Lois Lane, winning the part ahead of many of Hollywood’s better-known actresses. She works with Clark Kent on the “Daily Planet.”

he’s not Superman; what’s that kid doing flying around in Superman’s cape?’ we were all in trouble." In developing the hero’s dual persona, says Reeve, the Man of Steel was the greatest challenge, Clark Kent the most fun. "The movie stays true to the spirit of Superman, but it’s a full-blown romantic adventure, not a comic strip with actors.

So my character had to be three-dimensional.” “Superman, remember, comes to us from another world. He’s a stranger in strange land, trying to fit in to his adopted planet. His powers are extra-ter-restial, but his emotions — humor, compassion, a strong sense of justice — are often human.” “And he can fall in love.” Clark Kent, on the other hand, is an amalgam of every put-upon poor soul from Casper Milquetoast to the 97 pound weakling in the Charles Atlas ads. “He’s the sort of walking mess who brings out every woman’s maternal instincts,” Reeve sums up. Being cast as Superman, he aamits, has changed his life in both obvious and subtle ways. Physically, he has added 35 pounds of muscle to his already imposing physique, via six months of weight lifting, running, workouts on the trampoline and a high protein diet. Professionally, he has sailed through a year of pressure during which “every day on the set was like a Broadway opening night.” He has had had what he calls an “incredible opportunity to learn what movie acting is really all about” from such masters of the art as Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Trevor Howard and Maria Schell. He has been interviewed by media from all over

the world but finds it difficult to understand why his opinions, which "nobody cared about two years ago” are sueednly relevant. “I’m delighted to talk about acting or ‘Superman’ or my own background,” be insists. “But I can’t understand why people are concerned with what I think about subjects which I have no reason to know anything about. Being a successful actor doesn’t automatically make you an oracle." More recently, with production of “Superman” concluded, he has thought about his future. “1 don’t want to be Superman all my life,” he explains. “I don’t want people to remember me vaguely ten years from now as ‘the guy who played Superman in the seventies’.

“That’s not to say I wouldn’t do it again if this picture is successful and they want me to. But if another Superman movie is made, it will — like this one — require tremendous technical preparation. That will give me time to appear in totally different movie roles, to go back to Broadway, to keep working at my craft.

“I’ve been acting since I was 14 years old. I love it. ‘Superman’ has given me a fantastic opportunity if I treat it as just that — not a lifetime in the same costume and cape.”