‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Star Brandon Routh Would Love to Team Up With Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman

Brandon Routh, who played Superman before he stepped into Ray Palmer’s super-suit as The Atom on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, would still love to share the screen with another Man of Steel.

While Hoechlin’s Superman will play what appears to be a significant role in the upcoming “Elseworlds” crossover on The CW, the Legends will sit the crossover out this year, meaning that Ray won’t be locking eyes with his red-caped doppelganger just yet.

“That would be a blast,” Routh said. “I’ve never, except for doing a little comedy bit, ‘League of Supermen,’ that I did with the Daly family, shared the screen with a Superman. But that would be fun.”

It was established in the “Invasion!” crossover, which aired in 2016, that Ray has a cousin in-story who looks a lot like Kara Zor-El/Supergirl, so the Arrowverse is not afraid of referencing the actor’s role in Superman Returns. Hoechlin, for his part, debuted the Superman role that same season but has only appeared in a few episodes of Supergirl. The “Elseworlds” crossover will represent his first time teaming up with the network’s non-Kryptonian superheroes.

Routh is one of a number of “legacy” hires that The CW has brought into the Arrowverse. DC has a long history of bringing previous actors into the fold, with the Superman movies and Smallville among those to do it before Arrow ever premieres.

In the current crop of DC shows, Supergirl has used Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman as well as Helen Slater from the 1980s Supergirl movie and Carl Lumbly from Justice League Unlimited. The Flash has cast original Flash actors John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays, Alex Desert, and Vito D’Ambrosio. Even Gotham gets in on it sometimes, with Paul Reubens reprising his role as the Penguin’s father from Batman Returns. Most recently, Supergirl announced that they had cast Jon Cryer, who played the nephew of Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor i the ’80s, in the role of Lex.

Routh is somewhat in a class by himself in the sense that he is a series regular, making his casting feel a little bit less like a gesture purely for the fans.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following episodes of Arrow on The CW.