Nicholas Hoult Reveals the Overlooked Comic Inspiration for His Lex Luthor in Superman

With Creature Commandos right around the corner, the James Gunn and Peter Safran era of DC Studios is finally poised to begin, and that means we’re also ever closer to the first feature film of that new era in the Gunn-directed Superman. In addition to David Corenswet’s Superman, the film will also bring a new interpretation of Lex Luthor to the big screen played by Nicholas Hoult. Hoult recently teased some of what fans can expect from his Lex Luthor in a conversation with Joh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and during that conversation, Hoult also revealed an underrated comic that he frequently went back to for inspiration, and that comic is Lex Luthor: Man of Steel.

With the variety of Lex Luthors we’ve seen in the comics, live-action, and animation, Hoult has a bevy of interpretations to pull from and spoke a bit about pulling pieces from many of those now iconic versions. “It’s about I think you take from all the previous interpretations of the character and the comics and you build upon it. That’s the fun thing in like movies and comics and kind of all media in a sense is the history of all of it. It’s all kind of a building amalgamation of it,” Hoult said.

“Then there’s weird connections I make where I’m like, oh you know I’m working with Clint who obviously directed Unforgiven and that’s what Gene won one of his Oscars for his brilliant performance in that, and you know watching Michael Rosenbaum as well and all these brilliant people that have played that character,” Hoult said.

As for the comics, Hoult dove in and found to pull elements from, but there was one particular comic series that he kept coming back to. “There’s so many and James has already spoken about quite a few that influence obviously the overall film and All Star Superman, and there’s little things that you draw from each, Birthright and all those all those comics,” Hoult said. “But the one that I really rang…and I read a lot, but the one that I found myself picking up again a lot was Luthor Man of Steel. There was a lot in that just resonated with me.”

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Luthor: Man of Steel is a five-issue series by Brian Azzarello, artist Lee Bermejo, colorist Dave Stewart, and letterer Rob Leigh from 2005, and the series has since been collected into a trade format under the title Luthor. The series is centered on Luthor’s goal to rid Metropolis and the world really of Superman once and for all, and his quest takes him to Gotham and to the circles of a certain Dark Knight. As you would expect from the creative team, the story examines Luthor on a more human and grounded level as he manipulates those around him to further his end goal, while also analyzing his true issues with Superman and how he views Superman’s effect on humanity.

While Hoult didn’t pinpoint exactly what from the book he was pulling from most, it’s another promising note from a heavily anticipated project that is already drawing from some classic Superman stories. Hoult read and watched a lot of Luthor stories in hopes that he can bring a compelling version of the character to the screen.

“Then it was just an exciting process because you know, going back to watching the previous movies, you know reading comics, reading books. Trying to understand Lex physically and emotionally and just dig into that to give, you know hopefully, a real performance that’s got real emotion and some good stuff grounding it and something that people will enjoy watching,” Hoult said.

Are you excited for Hoult’s Lex Luthor? You can talk all things DC with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb and on Bluesky @knightofoa!