On this week’s episode of Earwolf’s hit podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, CNN correspondent Jake Tapper, on hand to promote his new novel, got into a surprisingly long and thoughtful conversation about the state of superhero cinema. Aside from worrying about his colleague Dana Bash losing her street cred in Metropolis, he took the position that actors who appear in Marvel movies should not be able to move over to the DC Films universe, and vice versa. He singled out a few actors, including Ben Affleck (who played Daredevil before he was Batman), J.K. Simmons (who plays both Commissioner Gordon in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and J. Jonah Jameson in a number of Spider-Man films), and Willem Dafoe (who appeared in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and Aquaman).
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Tapper presented it as a matter of principle, noting that in some cases, he would “lose” performances he had really enjoyed, but that you have to make that kind of sacrifice to honor your principles. O’Brien mostly agreed, but brought up Deadpool as the exception.
“I think that if you are in the Marvel Universe, then you have to have the ethics and the strength to not then go into the DC Universe as an actor, and both. YOu can’t be J. Jonah Jameson — Peter Parker’s boss — and then turn around, and you’re Commissioner Gordon for Batman. You can’t do it, Simmons. You can’t do it — it’s not fair! You can’t be one of Aquaman’s evil gremlin fish-men, and then turn around and be the Green Gobin fighting Spider-Man. You can’t be Daredevil and Batman, Affleck. You have to pick one. I’m actually an unapologetic Affleck fan. I don’t care what anybody says. And he’s good as Batman, but I’m sorry, he was Daredevil first.”
After first agreeing, O’Brien later chimed in to ask whether that meant Green Lantern — a movie that he joked nobody even saw — would have taken Ryan Reynolds out of the running to be Deadpool years later.
“Yes,” Tapper said. “I submit that there are sacrifices that one makes for principle. That’s what principles are; you uphold them even if sometimes it’s inconvenient. Like, you honor democracy even if your candidate loses.”
The idea of actors crossing over between Marvel and DC franchises — especially if those franchises are filming at the same time — has become more common than it was in the past. It used to be especially noteworthy when it happened, but as the pool of actors cast in big-budget tentpoles seems to shrink down to the same handful of people, it’s less and less surprising to see a Disney regular head over to Warner Bros., or vice versa.
