Now that Superman is available to watch at home, fans have been blessed with David Corenswet‘s audition to play Clark Kent.
A self-tape video of the actor reading his lines has recently gone viral, showing how he landed the role of the Man of Steel in the James Gunn-helmed blockbuster, which premiered last month in theaters before debuting on digital this month.
In the video shared on YouTube by 21 Casting, Corenswet slates to the camera before getting in Clark Kent costume and performing the interview scene with his wife Julia Warner reading Lois Lane’s part.
“You better be blown away by David Corenswet’s audition. This dude just oozes that Superman vibe,” a fan wrote on X with a still of Corenswet in Netflix’s The Politician, in which his character was compared to the DC superhero.
“David Corenswet was born to play Superman! Is Clark Kent!” another person raved. “What an amazing audition tape!”
One viewer wrote, “You can always tell who went to Juilliard and who didn’t. Corenswet is such a theatre kid and it’s so great. He channeling [Christopher] Reeve so much here it’s wild. Also, if you haven’t seen his student projects and shorts, you’re missing out. They’re absolutely fantastic.”
In addition to a “beautiful” handwritten letter from Corenswet that came after, Gunn previously told GQ he was immediately convinced by the actor’s audition tape. “From the very beginning, he was the guy to beat, frankly,” he said.
Corenswet told the outlet, “James has told me that the one thing that surprised him, that meant something to him initially, was the humor that I brought to that first scene. I immediately read it in the terms of the movies that I grew up on, which are Singin’ in the Rain and His Girl Friday, and the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. Just the timing and the patter and the style of humor—and it turned out that that was what he was imagining.”
After surpassing $331M to become the United States’ highest-grossing Man of Steel pic in the month since its release, Superman premiered on digital this month, giving fans a chance to catch up before the return of Peacemaker to HBO Max for Season 2.
Since taking over DC Studios with Peter Safran, Superman marks the first entry in Gunn’s new DCU franchise, which begins with the ‘Gods and Monsters’ phase.