Margot Kidder Once Shared That She Initially Believed Christopher Reeve Wouldn’t Make a Good Superman
Superman has been played by a variety of actors since his creation, with Christopher Reeve embodying the character in 1978’s Superman. Although many saw him as the ideal take on the character, his co-star Margot Kidder wasn’t sold on Reeve at first.
Margot Kidder had her doubts about Christopher Reeve as Superman
Similarly to Reeve, Kidder won the role of Lois Lane by winning over Superman director Richard Donner. Donner was interested in Kidder after having seen her on a television show. Based on her performance on the small screen, Donner thought Kidder had what he was looking for in the Daily Planet reporter.
His opinion was further solidified when Kidder showed up to audition for the role. What might have cost actors a film role in other auditions just endeared Kidder to Donner even more.
“When I met her in the casting office, she tripped coming in and I just fell in love with her. It was perfect, this clumsy [behavior]. She was one of the few [actresses] we flew to London to test with Chris. Anne Archer [also tested]. But they were magic together,” Donner once told The Hollywood Reporter.
Some of Kidder’s clumsiness was due to her not being able to wear her contacts while auditioning. But Donner became so impressed with Kidder’s behavior that he made sure to keep contacts away from the actor for Superman.
“Every morning people had to come to me and make sure she didn’t have her contacts in, and that she would act without her contacts. It just made her wonderful,” he said.
Donner may have been sold on Kidder and Reeve as Lois and Superman respectively. But when Kidder was asked if she initially thought Reeve would’ve made a good Superman, she didn’t hold back.
“Not at the screen test, no,” she once said according to Flashback Files. “He was really thin at the time. He was thin and dorky. And then he went to the gym and worked like a son of a gun and became Superman. It was his first movie.”
Margot Kidder once explained why she felt Christopher Reeve’s ‘Superman’ was better than later movies
Other directors would deliver their interpretation of the comic book hero in theaters after Donner. 2006’s Superman Returns and 2013’s Man of Steel were both different and unique takes on the character. But Kidder felt that her Superman film always triumphed over the others because of quality and comic book accuracy.
“No, they always go back because that film was better written and directed. They go back to them because they were so much truer to the comic books,” she once told HeyUGuys. “Kids learn the morality tale of Jesus in a way; a guy away from his dad, floundering around on Earth and is this purely good person. Superman responds to women by saving them, saves the children and beats up the bad guys, if you will.”
She also felt the films made a mistake in trying too hard to cater to a particular demographic.
“Probably, my guess is what happened is when they decided to hit the demographic of the millennials in the later films. I think the directors were good, the actors were good but the basic approach wasn’t there,” she said.
Margot Kidder was disappointed with Amy Adams’ incarnation of Lois Lane
Kidder believed that she and Reeve did well together because they naturally had a very sibling-like relationship behind the scenes.
“What came across was an intimacy that Chris and I did have, because we came from similar backgrounds and he looked like one of my brothers. So the energy we had was one of brother and sister, which was often bickering, that took the place of romantic energy. No one noticed the difference one from the other – it worked,” she said.
As much of a fan as she was of the character, she wasn’t too thrilled with how Lois was written in Zack Snyder’s films. Although she didn’t blame actor Amy Adams for the characterization.
“They took one of the best American actresses’ around, Amy Adams, and didn’t give her anything to do! I mean, how stupid is that? They made her what used to be the girlfriend, which kind of ended in the 60s with women’s rights,” she said.
