After 2017's Justice League, British actor Henry Cavill stepped away from his iconic role as the DCEU's Superman to focus on other projects like Netflix's The Witcher, which will relaunch production on Season 2 in April. However, he confirmed in an interview published today that he hopes to come back as that universe's Clark Kent for "years to come."
That interview, conducted by Patrick Stewart for Variety's "Actors on Actors" issue, did not confirm how much of a role Cavill will play in future DC Comics movies. However, last month Warner Bros. said that it will not be for another standalone film when it was floated that Cavill was in talks to return in future DCEU projects.
Cavill said that he has always been a fan of Superman, and that playing the character "dramatically" changed not only the course of his career, but his public representation. He added, "Because it's such a wonderful character, it's actually a responsibility I'm happy to have, and I hope that I get to play more of Superman in years to come." The desire to live up to his iconic character has also led to Cavill trying to make himself a better person in his everyday life.
Unrelated to this desire to keep playing the character going forward, Henry Cavill will be reappearing as the Man of Steel in Zack Snyder's cut of Justice League, a long-awaited version of the film that was confirmed to be coming to the streaming service HBO Max in 2021. Cavill's part in that movie's reshoots under Director Joss Whedon after Snyder had to step away are now infamous due to the production needing to digitally edit away his mustache from Mission Impossible: Fallout.
Performing alongside Tom Cruise in the 2018 Mission Impossible film apparently had a sizable impact on Cavill, who also told Stewart in the Variety interview that he does his own stunts in Netflix's The Witcher to bring a sense of realism to the role of Geralt, much like Cruise does on his films. Though playing Superman would inherently require more CGI and special effects, it will be interesting to see whether this desire extends more into the DCEU as well.
With DC movies like Wonder Woman 1984 continuing to receive delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, it isn't clear when Cavill will have the chance to step in as Superman. In the meantime, fans of the DCEU can currently unlock a skin based on his coworker Jason Momoa's Aquaman in Epic Games' Fortnite.
Source: Variety