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If David Corenswet looks the part as DC Studios’ Superman, rest assured that he got the role for more than just his visual appeal — and that, if he wasn’t right for the part in writer/director James Gunn’s mind, we wouldn’t even have a Superman movie to look forward to in the first place.

“I said from the beginning, ‘If I don’t find Superman, I’m not going to do this movie,’” Gunn told GQ. “Because I knew that this was dependent on the guy that’s playing Superman.” And he was asking a lot of his future Man of Steel, it turns out: “I couldn’t go for someone that didn’t work. I couldn’t go for someone that had the look, but didn’t have the chops. I couldn’t go for someone that had the chops but didn’t have the look. I couldn’t go for someone that had the looks and the chops, but couldn’t do the comedic parts, or couldn’t do the more vulnerable aspects.”

As luck would have it, Gunn found the right man on the first day of auditions — the same day that he saw Rachel Brosnahan audition for Lois Lane — but he couldn’t quite believe it, going on to test more than 400 other potential Clark Kents. “From the very beginning, he was the guy to beat, frankly,” Gunn admitted, although he was also thinking, “God, is this really right? Can it be this easy?”

What convinced Gunn that David Corenswet had what it takes wasn’t his look, but everything else he brought to the role. “I don’t know if anybody I’ve worked with before would’ve been able to do this stuff, besides maybe Chris Pratt,” Gunn said.

“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,” Corenswet added. “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.”

A Superman that’s as much screwball romantic lead as they are a superhero? That might be the biggest swing in the entire reboot of the character — and something that’ll reveal just how different the new DCU is from the other superhero movies out there.

Superman flies into theaters July 11.

James Gunn's Superman is flying into theaters soon enough, and Popverse has all you need to prepare. Refreshing your cinematic memory with our Superman movie watch order, learn what we know about the upcoming Superman movie, Superman's S-Shield through the ages, and read about what DC is doing ahead of their flagship hero's triumphant return.