‘Superman’ | Anatomy of a Scene

I’m James Gunn. I’m the writer and director of ‘Superman.’ So in this scene, we have David Corenswet as Clark Kent slash Superman and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. They are dating. And Lois calls out Clark for writing interviews with himself to put in the newspaper. And he says, well, you could interview me sometime. And she says, right now? And this is the beginning of the part where she interviews him. “Well, Boravia invaded Jarhanpur. And I showed up and told them that wasn’t right.” “And?” “And smashed some tanks and things, and a couple of planes, and some other stuff. There were no casualties and no significant injuries.” “Did you interact at all with the president of Boravia, Vasil Ghurkos?” “A very small amount.” “What’s a very small amount?” “That was between us.” “This is all on the record.” “Yeah, but that conversation was between the two of us.” “Yeah, and I would ask that question whether or not I knew the answer to it.” I started making this movie asking the question, what if Superman was real? What if he was a real human being with real flaws, real beliefs, and a real relationship with this woman, Lois Lane? And what would their clashes be? And that’s where this scene comes into play. And although this scene is about their politics and their moral beliefs, it is also about their relationship at a point where they’ve been dating for about three months, as many relationships go through. And we start to see that there are differences in the way our partner looks at the world. And oftentimes, those are the things that can either break a relationship or make it stronger. I just wanted to keep things simultaneously grounded, but also fast paced — “— you illegally entered a country, inserting yourself in the middle of an incredibly heated —” “No, no, no. Hold on a minute.” “— geopolitical situation.” “Hold on a second.” — where they’re just going back and forth in a fast way, but also keep everything as real as we possibly can and give a — make it a surprise for ‘Superman’ viewers, who aren’t used to seeing a 12-minute talking scene in the middle of their superhero movies. Superman is just taken aback by how unstoppable Lois is, and how she just isn’t giving him a break. And he’s so overly kind, in some ways, that he’s just surprised. And she feels aggressive. “You’re being dishonest, because you know as well as I do that the Boravian government is not well intentioned.” “I think that’s almost certainly the case. But do I know that?” I wrote this scene really early on. And it was a scene that I had David and Rachel screen test with to make sure that they had chemistry. “Do you think this is going well?” And they were very, very good. “I think I’m doing a good job.”