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http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/701/701420p1.html
Superman Returns: Casting the Man from Krypton
Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh tell it...
April 12, 2006 - Psyched to see Superman Returns? We're right there with you. (In case you need another dose of coolness, the trailer works wonders, so hit it). From the look of things, director Bryan Singer captures the essence of Superman; and it isn't merely John William's music, or Guy Dyas' production design. The key element that says They Did It! They Got Superman! is the man who plays him, Brandon Routh. Just how did Singer find the unknown actor who would be the center of this summer's most anticipated movie?
"The role of Superman, to me, was always to be an unknown," says Singer from the set in Sydney, Australia. The process "was a lot of going through tapes and materials that had been collected previously, along with new material, and combining all those." Amid these videotapes, Singer noticed Routh's audition, and proceeded to set up a meeting, as soon as possible, with the unknown actor.
"It was a Friday," says Routh. "My agent called, and I didn't want to answer the phone because I had a headache. But she kept calling and calling." Finally answering the phone, his agent told him Bryan Singer wanted an immediate meeting. "I was shocked and thinking finally, because I'd done several things in the process and kept thinking it was never gonna happen." Routh asked if Signer could post-pone it for an hour or two due to his headache, but the answer was: "No, he's leaving for Australia to do a scout."
The first meeting was late last year in West Hollywood, "at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset," says Singer. Walking into the coffee shop, Singer admits thinking, he's "going to be the guy or not going to be the guy. I'll know in twenty seconds if it's a 'no go.'"
"I was there early," says Routh. "I think I was reading Atlas Shrugged. He got there, we ordered coffee. He was a little bit nervous and I was a little bit nervous. We just talked for a good hour and a half about the film and so forth."
"It was very funny," says Singer. "I walked in and twenty seconds later I'm thinking, it's still working for me." At the end of the meeting, Singer asked, "Would you mind coming in and reading and doing some more stuff?"
"I was like, Yeah, of course," says Routh. "He went off to Australia. I had a really good feeling from that; a really, really good feeling. He was pretty much sure from that meeting, too. Before I actually got the 'go ahead,' I'd had a lot of time to think about it, to be prepared for it." During this time Routh went through "several stages of, 'Am I gonna get this? Am I really gonna get this? Wow! I think I'm gonna get this! Am I gonna get this?' So, I had a while to become okay with it. To think about it a lot."
Two months later, a representative from Warner Brothers called Routh to officially inform him. "I'm not even sure who it was," says Routh. They said, "Well, congratulations you're, you know... And I said, 'Great! Thank you!' It was more of a big relief to finally have it happen."
Singer says he doesn't know if Routh knew this, but "I knew when I got on the plane."
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