According to Roger Moore's autobiography, he witnessed Christopher
Reeve walking through the canteen at Pinewood Studios in full Superman
costume during the filming of the 1978 film, oblivious to the swooning
female admirers he left in his wake. When he did the same thing
dressed as Clark Kent, no one paid any attention.
"What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he
has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an
acting point of view, that's how I approached the part."
Casting director Lynn Stalmaster was the first to suggest Reeve for
the title role, but director Richard Donner felt he was too young and
too skinny. Nevertheless, Reeve did an excellent screen test that blew
the director and producers away. Once he had the part, he underwent a
strict physical training session for months, going from 170 pounds to
212 in the period from pre-production to filming.
To obtain the musculature to convincingly play Superman, Reeve
underwent a bodybuilding regime supervised by David Prowse, the man
who played Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
The development of the best method to show Superman flying was a long
period of experimentation. The methods attempted included simply
catapulting a dummy into the air, a remote control model airplane
painted as the character and simply animating the flying sequences.
The producers settled for a combination of forward projection and
specially designed zoom lenses that could create the illusion of
movement by zooming in on Reeve while making the forward projection
appear to recede.
For scenes where Superman has to interact with other people or objects
while in flight, Reeve and fellow actors were put in a variety of
rigging equipment with careful lighting and photography to hide the
equipment.
"I have seen first-hand how Superman actually transforms people's
lives. I have seen children dying of brain tumors who wanted as their
last request to be able to talk to me, and have gone to their graves
with a peace brought on by knowing that their belief in this kind of
character is intact. I have seen that Superman really matters.
They're connecting with something very basic: the ability to overcome obstacles, the ability to persevere, the ability to understand
difficulty and to turn your back on it."
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