Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
The British actor has been working ferociously since her Cinderella breakout. Now, as she adds ‘producer’ to her resume, Lily James invites Greg Williams to the premiere of her first produced feature, Swiped, and considers what the experience has taught her as an actor and a person.
For Lily James’ next evolution she’s planning on becoming a sea siren. When Hollywood Authentic catches up with her she’s prepping for her role in submarine thriller Subversion on the Australian Gold Coast, getting ready for upcoming underwater stunts by learning breath- holding techniques. ‘So I can officially become a mermaid!’ she laughs. She may be joking, but the British actor has had a busy couple of years of transformation – from essaying Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy to a wrestling wife in The Iron Claw and dangling off mountains for the upcoming gender-flip reboot of Cliffhanger. And not just on screen, either: having established her production company, Parodos Productions, with partner Gala Gordon, James made the leap to producing her first feature film (as well as headlining) with Whitney Wolfe Herd biopic, Swiped. As she told Greg Williams when he captured her on the way to the film’s London premiere in September, the experience had truly changed her. ‘I’ve learnt so much through producing Swiped. I was building my production company at the same time, so from playing Whitney I was learning that entrepreneurial spirit, ambition, hustle and having a real mission.’
James is probably being modest. It’s clear she’s always had ambition and a mission since her days breaking through on Downton Abbey and Cinderella, which catapulted her to a prolific work output. Stepping up to produce seemed like the next logical step. ‘My partner, Gala, and I were so ferocious in our desire to explore every part of [Wolfe Herd’s] story. But one of the things I learned about producing is to accept the compromises. It’s such a collaboration, which is very powerful, and there are so many wins, but there are inevitably losses too, and everything feels so precious to me. There’s no way I could have done this film and not had at least the agency to be in those discussions, and involved in the edit bringing the story to life. It was very profound for me.
I’m going to love continuing to produce and growing in that – and I think I’ll love it even more when I’m not in it!’
Her bursting upcoming slate is full of both experiences. She recently executive-produced Cliffhanger, a remake of the 1993 Stallone actioner in which she plays a mountain climber alongside Pierce Brosnan as her father. For the shoot, she learnt to rock climb in Ibiza before hanging off precipices in the Dolomites during filming. ‘There’s a spiritual, meditative, slowing down of your mind while climbing,’ she enthuses. ‘I’m working in the edit now with [director] Jaume Collet-Serra, and I was very much involved in the script, the forming of my character, and the family dynamic in Cliffhanger. So it has been a big year of producing.’
Also in the pipeline: Angry Birds 3; playing a cult leader in Harmonia; a thriller with Riz Ahmed, Relay; and Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, a sequel to Abel Ferrera’s classic. It was one of James’ favourite experiences on a film set and one that she nearly didn’t take. ‘I’d been in Costa Rica for six weeks – learning to surf and editing Swiped from the jungle. I didn’t want to come home. And then this job came along, and it was so far out, so wild and explicit and dangerous. I didn’t know if I was ready but I just threw myself into it and I loved losing myself. Takashi Miike works a bit like Clint Eastwood, in that you get one take, and then he moves on. I like multiple takes, exploring and trying different things and being sure we’ve got it. And I had to let go of all of that and lean in. It was magic and invigorating. I felt like every nerve ending was on fire. I was so present.’ She pauses and thinks for a moment. ‘When I was at drama school, there’s a beautiful naivety to the work, and you’re taught to fail. Be bold, be brave, be courageous. And if you fail, it’s probably going to be even more interesting. I think I’d lost that. I was reminded of how much better it is if you let go of the reins.’
I have a great clarity in what I believe in, how I show up at work, what I know I can contribute. But I’m still after the same thing, which is to lose yourself to a moment of work, opposite amazing actors, telling a story that triggers something inside you. Now I have such a heightened sense of time passing, and I just want to make sure that I’m showing up for something that is really meaningful
When she looks back at the young woman in Downton Abbey, what changes can she see now in approach and decision-making? ‘I have a great clarity in what I believe in, how I show up at work, what I know I can contribute. But I’m still after the same thing, which is to lose yourself to a moment of work, opposite amazing actors, telling a story that triggers something inside you. Now I have such a heightened sense of time passing, and I just want to make sure that I’m showing up for something that is really meaningful. The production company is a part of trying to find that agency and clarity. But I’m also trying to find a better work-life balance in terms of feeding all the parts of me – not just the actor.’
As an actor, James also understood the special scorn reserved for Wolfe Herd on social media and via the press. ‘I’m very sensitive,’ she admits. ‘Being an actor, being out there, you can’t help but absorb all these different energies and ideas, and what people project onto you. Having a way of disassociating from that is very important.’ To that end, she plans to spend more time singing/focusing on music (she’s been working with musician Ben Abraham), possibly directing and giving herself time away to creatively recharge. ‘At the moment, I’ve been waking up at 5am and watching the sunrise. I feel much more connected to who I am when I’m living in that rhythm. So I plan on exploring, travelling and seeing the world.’
Before she can exhale, though, she needs to master the breath-holding. ‘I love anything that stretches me and pushes me beyond my limits,’ she smiles. ‘But I’ve really begun to acknowledge how important it is to create better boundaries between yourself and the character. You have to let it go, and come back to yourself…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Swiped is available on Disney+ and Hulu now
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER
The prolific actor has two awards-buzz movies out and has just launched a second season of her self-produced TV show. She tells Hollywood Authentic about being a muse to David Lynch, the family she finds at work and learning to say it as it is.
In Jay Kelly, Noah Baumbach’s bittersweet love letter to moviemaking, the titular Hollywood star (George Clooney) attends an Italian film festival – staying in luxurious accommodation with gorgeous views and encountering people with European sensibilities. So it’s fitting that the film premiered in the land of la dolce vita, bowing at the Venice Film Festival with the cast including Emily Mortimer, Adam Sandler, Billy Crudup and Laura Dern bobbing to their red carpet via water taxi from the Cipriani Hotel, where Greg Williams captured their pre-prem prep and post-event wind-down. ‘It was amazing,’ says Dern of the experience when Hollywood Authentic catches up with her back in LA a few weeks later as she prepares to premiere her next movie, Is This Thing On? ‘The embedded Italian film festival storyline made it particularly delicious!’
Equally delicious, she says, was the experience of making a movie with a company she calls her family. ‘You know, as an only child my best friends have come from every movie that I’ve made, and the filmmakers that found me at a very young age were my best friends. They are as much a part of my life, deeply, as my own family that I was given in this life.’ Key to this particular family is Noah Baumbach, who wrote and directed a story Dern knows well as the child of movie stars – of an actor at the top of his game struggling to balance work and life, trying to navigate fame.
‘I love Noah Baumbach so much. I feel so privileged to have him literally as a family member now. I just feel so safe in our work, in our collaborative discoveries together. I’m like, “Wherever you want me, I’m showing up.” I’ve only had that with a few directors where you feel so blessed to be with them over years. It’s like any relationship – you see so much in each other, and you get to explore and try new things, and you get to know the language of the filmmaker.’
Dern has certainly had her pick of incredible filmmakers in her illustrious, award-winning career, including her long collaborative relationship with David Lynch – more of which later. As the daughter of actors Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern, she has been surrounded by the business from birth and made her film debut in White Lightning and Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (opposite her mother), before going on to work with a who’s who of auteurs. Adrian Lyne, Peter Bogdanovich, Martha Coolidge, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Alexander Payne, Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jean-Marc Vallée… the list goes on. But while working on Jay Kelly reminded her on all the sublime filmmaking experiences that have brought her to this point, it also marked a reunion of the stars of Grizzly II: Revenge, a 1983 schlock horror that remained unreleased until 2021, featuring Charlie Sheen, Dern and a newbie actor, George Clooney. ‘The ever-famous Grizzly II – we’re giving it so much press!’ she laughs. ‘I’m like, “George, should we be talking about Grizzly II in every interview? The 40-minute, unfinished horror film that we made?” But, you know, what a gorgeous gift that movie was for me, because I got George. And then, on this movie, I got Adam Sandler and his amazing family, who I really call my family now.’
‘Gift’ is a word Dern is fond of using; she projects enthusiasm and gratitude about the opportunities she’s had, and seems invigorated about those that may be on the horizon. The way she talks about her career highlights certainly feel like cherished prizes as she recalls her ‘myriad experiences’. ‘You see a clip of something, or a moment in time – my first movie, I was 11. My whole life is captured from sixth grade on… At 17, I met David Lynch. At 15, I met Peter Bogdanovich on the film Mask. Peter’s way of working was: it’s family. The minute we started, we were in his kitchen cooking or rehearsing. He was introducing me and Eric Stoltz to Renoir and Buñuel movies. He was like, “If I’m going to reference cinema, all of us need to know the language of it.” What an education. It’s a very different way of working. And then meeting David was such an incredible, extraordinary gift that lasted as long as I had him. So I’m very blessed. I’m so grateful that I have those memories, especially as we lose people that we love, that we have all those stories that we experience together. It’s really a great privilege.’
Her experience working with Baumbach on Marriage Story netted her a Best Actress Academy Award after nominations for Rambling Rose and Wild at Heart, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe wins. She also won an Emmy for her role in Big Little Lies – another ensemble cast where she made friends and learned new tricks, working with Jean-Marc Vallée. So is that feeling of creative fellowship something she actively seeks having experienced it with some of the greatest artists? ‘I think it’s a continual theme for me,’ she considers. ‘I don’t know if it would have had the same value had I not seen it from my parents’ relationships. Yes, my parents were actors who had very close friendships with filmmakers. But more specifically, it was the ’70s. So I got to be privy to ’70s cinema through my parents’ experiences with those filmmakers who made so much impact on film. And the directors that I’m finding now that are becoming my family, have the same language as those people, and the same priorities. So I think that education, if you will, made me long for something very specific.’
You know, as an only child my best friends have come from every movie that I’ve made, and the filmmakers that found me at a very young age were my best friends. They are as much a part of my life, deeply, as my own family
That specificity was perhaps never more in evidence than her long and fruitful relationship with Lynch, with whom she made Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Inland Empire. The duo met on a casting call for Blue Velvet and, as she wrote in a tribute in the LA Times on his death, bonded over ‘The Wizard of Oz, Bob’s Big Boy turkey sandwiches on white bread, transcendental meditation… and our shared love of Los Angeles’. Lynch cast her and Dern wrote that she ‘quickly traded college for following you to the ends of the Earth. I never looked back’.
‘After David, I was like, “Oh, am I never going to have that with someone else?” I assumed I wouldn’t,’ she says now. ‘But, you know, I did meet Jean-Marc Vallée, and we did get to work more than once together in such beautiful ways [on Wild and Big Little Lies]. And then the family that is Noah and Greta [Gerwig] – I made films with both of them over the course of a year [Little Women and Marriage Story]. That was such an incredible, rare beginning. And we were dear friends before we started the movies. It’s an incredible gift.’
For Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Dern plays an exasperated publicist trying to harness an unspooling Jay as his career, family life and public persona come into uncomfortable focus after a run-in with a former friend (Crudup). Constantly surrounded by staff, Kelly is nevertheless lonely, and disconnected from his daughters (Grace Edwards and Riley Keough). Though there’s amusement to be had in poking fun at the pomp of Hollywood (private jets, trailers, lifetime achievement awards), the themes of isolation and self-doubt are something Dern perhaps relates to more. ‘All of the chapters of Jay’s life give us room to consider whichever player we’ve been in any of those moments,’ she says. ‘Longing for having done it differently; not wanting to miss our lives when we’re focused on the big picture of being at an Italian film festival or wherever it is for any of us, for any vocation. I was feeling the gift of the moment, remorse in my own life, question marks; all of it…’
The solitude of Jay in a crowded room isn’t something Dern particularly recognises though. ‘I’ve never felt loneliness because I’m an actor. But I felt loneliness as the child of an actor. I know what that cost feels like by the nature of anyone who’s raised by parents who are taken away to go do their work – you do have a loneliness, because inevitably you’re being left for this other thing, whatever that profession is: travelling salesman or an actor or filmmaker. It’s hard to understand in childhood why your parent is not making you the priority, even if it’s impossible in that profession to do so.’
A mother of two herself, Dern considers how things have changed since her mom and dad were trying to juggle acting and parenthood. How her own experience of motherhood was deliberately, and fortunately, different. ‘You know, when my first child was born, I just didn’t work for almost two years, because I wanted to be there because of what I had been through, I’m sure. But I’m lucky. I have had producers or companies with agents and managers being very protective of [parental needs], figuring out ways to let me take my kids with me or getting me home, and giving me several plane tickets. My parents were in indie cinema. They weren’t being paid enough to fly home, you know? So when my parents went to do a movie, and there was nowhere to put a kid, and they didn’t want a kid on the set – I was blessed to have a grandma to be home with. But my parents left for a movie for three months, and I didn’t see them – we would talk on Sundays on a hotel phone which was very expensive. You had to save up your money for the Sunday call. You didn’t have FaceTime and texting your kids. So the heartbreak that I did sometimes experience was, I believe, matched by my mother’s heartbreak of having to work and leave me. So I am blessed to get to do it differently, and still, I’m sure, mess up all the time! I’m just trying my best.’
The actor’s mothering instinct has extended to Hollywood Authentic cover star Austin Butler, playing his parent onscreen in an uncredited cameo in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, as well as helping him navigate his sudden fame off-screen in the wake of 2022’s Elvis. Butler’s late mother was often likened to Dern and their friendship blossomed after he told her about this. ‘I feel like I’m learning every day. I don’t know if I’m imparting any wisdom. But I did find a beautiful and particular bond with Austin. I appreciate that he’s asking the questions deeply, and I was really happy to be there for that process.’
She’s playing another mom in her next film, Bradley Cooper’s awards-buzzy Is This Thing On? based on the real-life experience of British stand-up comedian John Bishop. She plays Tess, a former Olympic volleyball champ whose marriage to Will Arnett’s Alex disintegrates, sending him to stand-up sessions at New York’s Comedy Cellar, and the couple on a voyage of emotional discovery. It’s messy, brutally honest and gives Dern the juicy opportunity to play a complex, relatable mid-life woman. ‘I was so excited Bradley wanted to explore a real relationship, and then also a real couple in their 50s. And to really question in a deep and true way how we lose our way to who we are – which we all do, because we have to continue to redefine ourselves. We’re not who we were at 20. As we go on that discovery and adventure, then we get to redefine the partnership. And if we aren’t looking at ourselves, everything’s going to be lost. So that idea as a premise was really moving to me.’
Every experience I have is teaching me more, especially with these filmmakers who have invited me into their writing process, prep process, editing process. I want to keep learning. I’m definitely open to all the ways that I can be part of storytelling
Written by Arnett and Mark Chappell, Cooper made space for his cast to investigate and contribute to the honing of the characters. ‘He didn’t say, “Here’s the script. Do you want to play the part?” But: “Here’s the invitation. Who is this woman? Let’s find her together.” The process was beautiful. I would share thoughts and ideas, and he would just be like, “Tell me what she’s feeling, what she’s longing for?” These are not therapy-ised people. These are not affluent people. These are all of us trying to figure our shit out.’
Though Dern doesn’t think Tess is like her, there are elements of the character that she’s cleaved to since playing her. ‘I think this is the first character I’ve played where I would say there are parts of me that Bradley knows that I don’t stay true to, that I hope I become when I grow up,’ she smiles. ‘Having that direct “saying it as it is” energy. This is the most honest thing I can say to you… In the last two days even, I’ve found myself – because I’m tired from life and press and whatever – I’ve been saying stuff like Tess would. I think I’m still caught between growing into these qualities, and feeling comfortable with them.’ At this point Dern’s Husky, Baby, begins howling in the house. ‘Sorry, my Husky is very opinionated about this. She is like, “You are not Tess at all. You haven’t told me the truth yet. You haven’t even fed me!”
One thing Baby can agree on, breakfast or not, is the success of Dern as a producer. Having previously produced shorts and docs, she read the novel Mr & Mrs American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, and along with her producing partner, Jayme Lemons, developed the project, shepherding it to TV in the shape of Apple+’s hit limited series, Palm Royale. Originally she planned to play the lead, Maxine, but scheduling meant she offered it to Kristen Wiig with a new role written for Dern as castmate and exec-producer. The show is now rolling out a second season of period adventures among a fierce female cast including Carol Burnett, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb and Kaia Gerber.
‘As an actor, and a daughter of actors, to see this incredible cast having fun, and loving each other, and doing stuff that nobody gives them a chance to do…’ she marvels. ‘Kristen called me yesterday, and she said, “Did you actually develop a show where you’re letting me basically have musical numbers and dancing, and we’re working with Carol Burnett, and we’re all together producing this?” It’s just amazing. And seeing that, and the attention to detail, thanks to Abe Sylvia, our showrunner, and making sure in the second season that each character has their own arc, and even acting journey – those things are a blessing. Also creating, hopefully, a really lovely fun environment – it’s beautiful that I can do that. And to have that going, and also be exploring, as I love to do as an actor, with these amazing filmmakers that I get to work with.’
She has numerous projects lined up with Lemons under their shingle, Jaywalker Pictures, but perhaps her next progression is direction – especially given that she’s coming into her ‘saying it like it is’ era? ‘I definitely have thought about it. I made a short when I was in my mid-20s, and I loved the experience of that. I love acting – that’s my happy place. But I loved working with actors, and I also was fascinated by the framing as truth, that was so interesting to me. I just didn’t know enough for me to feel confident. But every experience I have is teaching me more, especially with these filmmakers who have invited me into their writing process, prep process, editing process. I want to keep learning. I’m definitely open to all the ways that I can be part of storytelling.’
For now though, there’s breakfast to get for Baby, the press tour for Is This Thing On? and awards season… ‘Last night I was with Adam Sandler and George Clooney. And I was like, “How did I get here, that everyone around me is one of my favourite people?” It’s not just the luck of timing and getting to do these things that I love. But in all three of these projects, I deeply love these people, and admire them so much. You feel like you’re giving a journalist a line when you’re saying that, but I actually am working with my family members. So I’m really grateful.’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Interview by JANE CROWTHER Jay Kellyis on Netflix now Palm Royale S2 is on Apple+ TV Is This Thing On? is in cinemas 30 January Laura wears Saint Laurent, Armani Privé and jewellery by Pasquale Bruni
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams gets the need for speed when he’s invited into the paddock with the Mercedes- AMG Petronas Formula 1 team at the Bahrain and Monaco Grand Prix, shadowing team principal Toto Wolff and his drivers.
Carmen Montero Mundt is watching her boyfriend, British Formula 1 driver, George Russell, perform his pre-race warm up in his dressing room in the Mercedes garage at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April. It’s approximately an hour before the race and while principal Toto Wolff studies car and track data with the team, Russell is strength training with a neck harness for the G-force he’ll be subjecting his body to as he hurtles round the circuit at speeds of up to 230mph. He’s paying particular attention to his neck and head, which can endure 6Gs on the track. He seems quite relaxed given the baying crowds in the stadium outside and the building sense of excitement and anticipation thrumming in the garage. He’s got an ice bath waiting for him post-race, but for now his concentration is all on what’s about to come…
I have unprecedented access to all the moving parts of the Mercedes team on this blistering hot Sunday and it’s a fascinating experience. I can see why fans and teams became addicted to the hi-octane energy of the sport as the crew and wider team move like a well- oiled machine. Like a movie set, this is a company of people moving in sync and with a single-minded mission. Key to that focused drive is team principal Wolff – an exceptionally impressive man with extraordinary leadership skills where you can tell that everyone that works at Mercedes would follow him in. They follow behind him because he leads from the front with great humour and self-deprecation, and he pursues perfection and excellence in a way that very few do. ‘There is no such thing as perfection,’ Wolff smiles as I ask what perfection looks like to him. ‘It’s only the pursuit of perfection. So we’re always going to find the hair in the soup. Even if you finish first and second.’ It’s very different to my photography, where I regard perfection as the enemy of what I do, but when you’re shaving hundredths of seconds off laptimes, perfection is what you chase in F1.
There is no such thing as perfection… It’s only the pursuit of perfection
The Austrian former racing driver and billionaire is CEO and owner of a third of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, where he has won eight consecutive World Constructors’ Championship titles and oversaw Lewis Hamilton winning six championships with the team. Wolff is fluent in English, French, Italian and Polish as well as his native German, but the language he’s most proficient in is motorsports. As he leans over monitors and converses with engineers and his drivers, Russell and 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli, he exudes an authority; a paternal, quiet calm. I have my teenage son along with me as my assistant and Wolff is incredibly warm and engaged with him despite the pressure on him in the moment. He also seems fair and kind with his team and with people’s mistakes, without being weak – a very together, impressive person. He reminds me of the command Ridley Scott has of his epic crew on set.
It’s little surprise that Wolff was sought out for advice and cameoed in recent blockbuster F1: The Movie. ‘We were involved from the early, early stages giving input and feedback on how to do the cars,’ Wolff says of the experience. ‘Then I was asked whether I wanted to do a cameo. I said yes, without really knowing whether that would happen or without knowing what it would mean. And then the filming felt horrendous for me because I was out of my comfort zone; I didn’t feel it was coming across authentic. When I saw myself onscreen it made me cringe even more. But the feedback was positive, so I’ll go with that opinion rather than my own!’ As a principal, what does Wolff make of Brad Pitt’s rebel character, Sonny Hayes, a brilliant driver who breaks all the rules? How would he deal with him? ‘Well, obviously it’s a Hollywood movie, but breaking the internal rules or not following team instructions is something that I would never believe in the team. But it was quite entertaining to watch it nevertheless.’
The drivers aren’t the only team members warming up before the race. The pit crew stretch with bands in the garage, getting ready for the incredibly physical task of prepping cars in seconds when drivers come into the box. Russell, out of his dressing room, is now totally focused and in the zone. I don’t speak to him at all at this stage of prep; it would be like trying to chat to a stunt performer before a set-piece. Russell and Wolff swap notes with the unflappable Bradley Lord, Mercedes’ trusted chief comms officer. The atmosphere is intense as the race gets underway, with applause held back until the task is completed.
When I join the team again in Monaco, I find Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes junior driver who was given Lewis Hamilton’s seat when he left for Ferrari after 12 years. He’s taking his school exams while also placing third on the podium as one of the youngest drivers to ever do so. It’s late May and the temperatures are rising, so Antonelli wears an ice vest to keep himself cool before he departs for the drivers’ parade pre-race. Before he leaves the garage, he looks through the data with Wolff. Wolff admits that when he watches a race he’s looking at three drivers: George, Kimi and Lewis ‘because he’s still in my heart’.
When I watch both Antonelli and Russell pull on their racing suits and balaclavas just before they get in the driving seat, I see another switch in concentration. We are stepping up another gear. The noise when the cars race is astonishing. Later, when Russell returns he’s wearing a cooling jacket packed with fans that makes him look like an astronaut. Antonelli chats to his race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who was previously engineer for Hamilton and has endless experience to impart to the youngest racer in Formula 1.
Experiencing the race from the paddock rather than the stadium is a unique one. I was amazed by the spotlessness of the garage (even tire marks are removed from the garage floor) and how impressive the Mercedes-AMG team are – a 58-headed monster. It gave me a new appreciation for Formula 1 and the real risks involved. It reminds me of the idea that a good movie has jeopardy and I’m now intrigued to see how the rest of Mercedes’ season goes. Wolff isn’t just looking at the season though. ‘My objectives are very long-term objectives, not for a single weekend or a single season, but trying to be contributing to setting an organisation in place that can win sustainably over the next five or 10 years,’ he says. ‘All of the decisions taken are always with a focus on that.’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams visits the Superman set in Atlanta as David Corenswet first suits up and later makes a flying visit to Juilliard to discuss vulnerability, confidence and his Lego plans for opening weekend.
20 February 2024
I arrive at Atlanta’s Trilith Studios on a cloudy Thursday in February to meet David Corenswet. It’s no ordinary day for the actor who was cast as Superman in the DCU’s ‘soft reboot’ of the Man Of Steel story in June 2023. There’s a palpable sense of excitement on a soundstage on day one of production as the co-CEOs of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran, await their lead dressed for the first time in his iconic suit and cape. I find Corenswet putting the final touches to his costume and hair in the make-up trailer. His hair is black with a curl hanging over his forehead and he’s wearing the latest iteration of the newly designed super suit. He’s worked out to up his muscle mass and after more than six months of prep, looks ready to embody Kal-El, the son of Krypton who lands on earth and becomes the superhero the world needs. In a bid to keep everything super secret, Corenswet wraps up in a black cotton cape to protect the suit from prying eyes as we walk across from the trailers to the soundstage and studio meeting rooms where the cast will have their first table read.
When Corenswet enters the soundstage the atmosphere is electric; Gunn and Safran are clearly stoked to see their vision come to life. I ask Corenswet how he’s feeling. ‘A little surreal. But in a good way,’ he smiles. He adopts a kneeling hero pose, and turns this way and that in front of the cameras, his red cape billowing behind him, the lights glancing off the blue of the suit. His onscreen nemesis, Nicholas Hoult, newly bald as Lex Luthor, arrives suited and booted and the actors josh with each other. ‘Are you not wearing your trunks outside your pants?’ Corenswet jokes. It’s not the first time they’ve been on a set together (Corenswet visited the set of Rebel in the Rye when Hoult was filming in 2017 as a newly graduated actor) but it’s the first time they’re worked together. ‘That’s Superman!’ Hoult whispers excitedly as Corenswet swishes past.
Two days later, back in their own clothes, the cast and crew gather in a conference room to read through the script before walking outside to take a group photo. Rachel Brosnahan (playing Lois Lane) leans against Corenswet as he crosses his arms – unconsciously mimicking the classic pose of Superman as he smiles. He’s a week away from principal photography beginning on Superman’s birthday in the comic books, 29 February. Corenswet will kick off his reign as Clark Kent/Superman filming sequences for the Fortress of Solitude in Svalbard, Norway…
5 June 2025
Fast forward 16 months and the actor is meeting me at Juilliard, the performing arts conservatory in New York. He’s travelled from his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was born and raised and now lives with his actor wife, Julia Best Warner, and baby daughter. It’s the calm before the storm. Though the Superman team have presented the movie at 2024’s San Diego Comic-Con and the teaser trailer broke records for the most views in a 24-hour period for both DC and Warner Bros, reaching over 250 million across all platforms, Corenswet is still able to go about his business in relative anonymity. On a warm June morning in Manhattan, we both know that is about to change as we stand outside the institution where his acting journey began – a place he refers to as ‘home’.
Corenswet attended the school after graduating from Penn, recalling the phone call telling him he’d made the selection as though it were yesterday. He graduated from Juilliard in 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and worked on TV show House of Cards before Ryan Murphy’s The Politician and Hollywood. Though he’d appear in Affairs of State in 2018, his transfer to movies came with Look Both Ways and then playing a rakish movie theatre projectionist in Ti West’s Pearl. That led to a nebbish role as a weather-chasing scientist in blockbuster Twisters, his delightful, nerdy performance possibly a calling card for playing klutzy Daily Planet reporter and Superman alter-ego, Clark Kent.
We enter the building where staff remember him from his student days and wander through the corridors and rooms as he recalls his time here. ‘This is our main room that we hung out in, where we had our first-year scene study class,’ he says as we walk into a cavernous space with stacked chairs and a piano. ‘It’s where we did our discovery project, which is the first production you do. A lot of hours spent in this room.’ He wanders over to the piano and starts noodling with the keys. ‘One thing I would always do is I’d end up playing the piano. Because it’s a music school, they had pianos in every room. So, after hours, I would just learn specific songs. I learned this song because my classmate, J.J., sang it in singing class: “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry”.’
I was like, ‘How long do I have to keep this secret?’ And he said, ‘Oh, we have to tell people immediately. It’s going to leak. We’re telling people in an hour’
As the music echoes round the room it conjures up images of Corenswet being a fledgling actor dreaming of getting a big break, and I think back to asking him on set in Atlanta how he found out he’d succeeded in landing Superman after an intense audition process. ‘It was 27 June, 2023, at 2:30 in the afternoon,’ he’d replied, fast, of the phone call from James Gunn. Clearly a huge moment for him. ‘I was like, “How long do I have to keep this secret?” And he said, “Oh, we have to tell people immediately. It’s going to leak. We’re telling people in an hour.”’ The same week he learned he’d got Superman, he also found out that his wife, Julia, was pregnant with their first child and due a few days before production was slated to start. A massive step-change in his personal and creative life.
As we walk to another room with a stage I ask if it’s emotional now to return to Juilliard. ‘I wouldn’t describe what I feel at the moment as emotional,’ he says sitting in the audience seats. ‘I don’t feel like I’m going to cry, or like I’m overwhelmed. But I’m thinking about a lot of things. I’m remembering a lot of things. They’re very special memories.’ He looks towards the stage where a lone light is standing in the darkness. ‘This is the ghost light, by the way,’ he explains. ‘This is the thing they put in to keep the ghosts away. That’s the lore. I think it’s mostly to stop people from tripping.’
I ask what his teachers thought of him as an actor and student when he used to study and perform in these rooms. ‘That I struggled with being vulnerable. Which I don’t think was true.’ Superman is extraordinarily vulnerable, I say. ‘Well, yeah,’ he nods. ‘I think all characters have to have a certain vulnerability. One of the great things about Nick’s performance as Lex is there’s a great vulnerability underneath. That’s what gives it stakes. It’s the possibility that things could go wrong for this person. I think that’s what vulnerability is.’ He still, he says, asks a lot of questions, as he did when he studied here. At Juilliard he began to question direction to get a deeper understanding of his craft. To follow instruction without conversation is akin to ‘if anybody tells you to jump off a cliff, you jump off a cliff’. He wanted to unpack the reasoning more. ‘What you want to be able to do is say: Why this cliff? Why now? And where are we hoping I’m going to land? I just like to get clear on that.’
His questioning continued on Superman. ‘If you talk to James [Gunn], that’s the one area where I’m difficult. And very quickly, that can start to sound like an argument. It can sound argumentative to people. He gave me a note that was very much not what I thought was appropriate for the scene. And so I started going back and forth with him a little bit. To anyone watching, it would look like an argument. It looked like I didn’t want to do things the way he wanted them done. And there was one sentence that he said in the heat of it all – you know, face to face. He said one sentence, and I went, “Stop. Great. I know exactly what you mean.” I walked back off, and did the thing. And it was what he wanted. I just wanted that moment where I knew what he was talking about.’
We walk to another rehearsal room. ‘It’s smaller than I remember. But it felt like a pretty epic stage, and it’s actually quite intimate. It’s also cool because this is the same theatre that Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, Christopher Reeve, and Robin Williams performed on.’ Reeve of course went on to be an iconic Superman in Richard Donner’s genre-defining movies, which paved the way for the superhero franchises audiences know now. ‘He was in the same rooms that I was in, and same theatre here that I performed in. He had a real playfulness about him as an actor generally. It’s funny watching interviews with him, too. He does have a nice edge about him.’
As we walk the corridors we pass the ‘wall of fame’, the photos of actors who have graduated from Juilliard’s doors. ‘We’ve got Anthony Mackie, the new Captain America, right there,’ Corenswet points out. ‘Bradley Whitford was always somebody we referenced, from The West Wing and Get Out and all kinds of things. Jessica Chastain is on there. Patti LuPone is up there. Jesse J. Perez. This is Jimmy “J.J.” Jeter, who was in my class. This was like the wall of inspiration.’ He points to Adam Driver. ‘There’s Adam and his wife, Joanne [Tucker]. I just remember the day that I walked by [room] 306. The doors were closed, and you’ve got windows on the door so you can see through them. But they had set up black flats on the other side so you couldn’t see in. And on the inside, you just heard sticks slamming together. My buddy was like, “Adam Driver’s in there. He’s training for Star Wars.” I was like, “I should break in and watch.” But I didn’t.’ He finds his own name in a list. ‘There I am on the wall.’
We move onto Theatre One, a black box theatre in the complex where Corenswet did his third-year productions and the wall of fame makes me think of another conversation we had on set. Where I suggested everything would change for him. ‘No,’ he disagreed at the time. ‘It’s just a change to one’s psychology. All the change was that I didn’t have to keep looking for a different job.’ I ask him if he still feels this way.
“No. But it’s not because I was wrong at the moment. It’s because you talked to me before we filmed the movie. And before you film the movie, all you know is that you get to film the movie. Now we’re a month away from the film releasing. We’ve released two trailers and a bunch of promotional materials. Billboards are going up… I think making the movie, and sharing the movie with the world, are two different things, and will have two different effects, and will change things in different ways. Nothing’s changed for me yet, really. I got to do another movie that I wouldn’t have gotten to do if I weren’t playing Superman. And I had a really, really wonderful and meaningful experience making that movie. [He’s playing real-life NFL running back John Tuggle in Jonathan Levine’s Mr Irrelevant.] At the moment, I mean, apart from going around the world to promote the film – the next two weeks are about as similar to the two weeks before I got Superman. I’m going to be at home, hanging out with my family – you know, watching movies, or cleaning, or cooking, or fixing stuff. You know, normal stuff. And I’m looking forward to that.’
He and his wife have known each other since they did summer theatre together, growing up in Philadelphia. But as we stand in a place he graduated from nearly a decade earlier with aspirations to achieve the success he has, he knows that while his home life might not modulate, his professional life will. ‘If you asked me on 12 July [the day after the film’s release], I’d probably be having some feelings, depending on whether we’re doing very well, what the critics have said…’ He pauses, then looks back at me with a grin. ‘I have this great, big collector’s edition Millennium Falcon Lego that my wife got me as a wrap gift when I finished Superman, and it’s still sitting in my closet at home. I saw it the other day, and I thought, “Maybe that’s what I’ll do on opening weekend. I’ll just turn my phone off, and do this enormous Lego for two days.” So maybe I won’t be apprehensive then either, because I’ll be too excited about my Millennium Falcon.’ He laughs.
We’ve released two trailers and a bunch of promotional materials. Billboards are going up… I think making the movie, and sharing the movie with the world, are two different things, and will have two different effects, and will change things in different ways. Nothing’s changed for me yet, really
I ask if he had confidence in getting the job when making his self-tape for Gunn and Safran. ‘No, mostly because I saw this sort of old Hollywood humour in it, like a Fred Astaire or a Donald O’Connor or a Jimmy Stewart humour. I was excited to do that, and I thought I’d do a good job with that, but I wasn’t sure that James had intended it to be that way. So for all I knew, that was not going to be what he was looking for, and I had just seen something that wasn’t really there. So there was no confidence that I was going to be the guy for the job.’
Did he have to have confidence in embodying self-assured Superman – and in stepping onto that Atlanta soundstage on that first day in the suit? ‘I had to fake some confidence doing that,’ he admits. ‘Walking onto this big soundstage with four or five dozen people standing around – lighting and filming and standing behind monitors. I didn’t know James that well at that point. But you go through the fear of people looking at the suit or looking at your hair… I just thought for this I should probably muster up some confidence, even if it was faux-courage, and just try to be as Superman-y as I could.’
Corenswet has been mastering performance nerves for a long time, having started as the son of an actor who later became a lawyer. ‘My dad, who was an actor for many years in New York after college – theatre and background work on some things – he saw an audition notice for nine-year-old boys, and thought, ‘I’ve got one of those.’ I liked school. I liked the academics of school. But I always had this thing of like: why is this important? Doing theatre – it was much more immediate. You rehearse so that you know what you’re doing when the audience shows up, and the audience shows up because they’re paying money to see the show. I worked at a bunch of regional theatres in Philadelphia. So I was about 16. I did theatre in school, and I did a summer theatre programme – Upper Darby Summer Stage – which was a great musical theatre. I took acting quite seriously for my age, but I couldn’t really compete in the musical theatre space. I was not as good a singer, and not as good a dancer, as most of my peers.’
Nonetheless, he got into prestigious Juilliard. ‘I think getting into Juilliard was a bigger, clearer path change than when I got the role of Superman, because I was studying psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, doing theatre extracurricular-ly. I had no idea what a path forward as an actor would be, even though I was still excited by it. And when I got the call that I’d gotten into Juilliard, that was the moment when I was like, “OK, well, I’m going to be an actor – at least for a while. At least, you know, until I get really good data that I don’t belong here, I’m going to be an actor.” If you show up to school every day for four years, you’re going to figure some stuff out, and you’re going to get better. But that was, I think, a very clear split in my path of like: “OK, you’re going to do this, and you’re going to do it 100 per cent for a while.”’
His experience at Juilliard clearly paved the way for Superman in the roles he was initially assigned. ‘I was put into roles that were buttoned-up and logical; a lot of patriarchs, and a lot of first half of the 20th century young men. The first time I got to do something really crazy was in the beginning of my third year. I played a heroin addict in New York in the ’90s.’ It’s probably no surprise then that an actor who excelled at playing golden-era Hollywood young men would land Superman, a character born in 1938 in Action Comics and a hero who is known for being thoroughly good and decent. Corenswet nods as we head back out the door. ‘This is what James said about this movie: it’s about Superman, who ultimately is a guy who’s a good person, who’s trying to do his best, in a world where being a good person and doing your best is not necessarily valued.’ I’m left feeling like there’s a real correlation between the amount of views the trailer had and the fact that we all might be looking for some hope and decency in a world where that’s lacking.
Photographs and interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Read our review of Superman Supermanis out in cinemas now
