Nicolas Cage Loved Playing Superman in ‘Teen Titans GO! to the Movies’

Nicolas Cage finally got to play Superman and while it wasn’t exactly how the actor may have first expected to suit up as the Man of Steel, it sounds like the actor had a “terrific” time in Teen Titans GO! to the Movies.

In Teen Titans GO! to the Movies Cage lends his voice to Superman, one of the adult Justice League members who are a bit unsure of the younger team of heroes, the Teen Titans. At some point, Superman even chastises the team about what it takes to be seen as real heroes. The animated film’s Superman’s stern attitude is a bit different, but Cage told USA Today that he enjoyed it just the same.

“It wasn’t really the version that Tim Burton and I had in mind, but it was just as fun,” Cage said.

As man fans know, Cage was once set to play Superman in Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, a film intended for production in the 1990s that would have loosely followed “The Death of Superman” storyline from comics. However, the project was scrapped. In 2009, images of Cage in his Superman costume for screen tests began to surface. Cage himself has never really directly addressed the film, usually speaking only in generalities about how he was fully behind what Burton’s vision for the film was going to be. That appears to be the case now as well.

However, even though his animated Superman may not be the version he was set to bring to the big screen, playing the hero still had to be a thrill for Cage. The actor’s love for Superman is well-known. In addition to once owning a copy of Superman’s first-ever comic book appearance in Action Comics #1, he also named his son Kal-El — Superman’s Kryptonian name. It turns out that it was Cage’s son that got him involved with Teen Titans GO! to the Movies, too. The child happens to be a big fan of the animated series the film is connected to and even has a role as a young Bruce Wayne in the film itself. Cage said that doing the film with his son made it special.

“It was terrific,” Cage says. “It was just nice to be involved in something my kid loves and we got to do together.”

And Cage will be back on the big screen as the voice behind another superhero. The actor was recently confirmed to voice Spider-Man Noir, a darker take on Peter Parker as raised during the Great Depression in the upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Teen Titans GO! to the Movies is in theaters now.