10 Best Actors Who Almost Played Superman

Much like the actors who play James Bond, Spider-Man, or Batman, securing the gig of Superman is a pretty big deal. The world's attention lasers in on the chosen one, as everything about the person is dissected and scrutinized in full public view. "He's not tall enough." "Where's the curl in his hair?" "Are those real muscles?" "Why doesn't he look like the actors playing Pa and Ma Kent?" Yes, the last one is a hilariously real comment posted on social media about David Corenswet's Clark Kent, and if you know, you know. Hopefully, the paycheck for this role more than compensates the performers for having to deal with the constant tomfoolery surrounding it.

Then there are the actors who almost received the chance to put on the red cape (and red trunks, in some cases), but it didn't happen for whatever reason. They're a rare breed who could have left their own mark on Superman and influenced the character's perception in pop culture. Would they have been better choices for the part in retrospect? That's difficult to say without seeing them in completed movies, but no one can deny they would be mildly curious to find out how Brendan Fraser or Joe Manganiello would fare as the Big Blue Boy Scout.

As fans, it's always fun to look back at what-if scenarios and question how movies would have panned out with different stars in the lead. So, let's enter the multiverse to discover the best actors who almost played Superman.

Before Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" hit theaters in 2006, there were various iterations of potential Superman films flying around the Warner Bros. offices throughout the 2000s. One project that attracted a lot of attention was a script written by J.J. Abrams. WB executives approved Abrams' story and looked at turning it into a trilogy, while Brett Ratner was brought in to direct the film. Then, in 2002, Jude Law turned down the chance to play Superman, even though he was reportedly Ratner's first choice for the role.

Speaking to MTV in 2015, Law opened up about why he said no to the Man of Steel. "At the time, I really didn't want to," he explained. "I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being that guy who played Superman." Despite him saying he didn't want the part, Ratner encouraged him to try on the costume at least once — likely hoping that if Law saw himself in the gear he might change his mind. Law admitted that putting on the outfit was a moment that made him proud, having been a comic book fan his entire life, but he also knew that he didn't need to do the movie.

Law isn't exactly the first person who comes to mind when you think of Superman. That said, the British actor would eventually get to scratch that comic book itch, as he went on to play Yon-Rogg in "Captain Marvel."

While it's difficult to imagine anyone else but Henry Cavill as Kal-El in Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel," the role could have gone to another actor had the circumstances been different. In fact, Joe Manganiello lost out on Superman due to scheduling issues. As the actor explained in 2011, he was in the running to play the hero, but he couldn't receive time off from the show "True Blood," in which he played Alcide Herveaux, to do a screen test and try on the costume. According to Manganiello, WB was so far along in the process that the production company had even requested his measurements to tailor the suit for his screen test.

Manganiello's story was corroborated by Snyder, who admitted to MTV in 2011 that he only considered two actors for the role of Superman: Cavill and Manganiello. Years later, Manganiello revealed that Snyder played a crucial and helpful part in him landing the role of Deathstroke, who was set to be the main villain in Ben Affleck's "The Batman" movie. As everyone knows by now, Warner Bros. changed lanes on all things DC more times than a Formula 1 driver, and the Snyderverse was eventually scrapped, along with Manganiello's Deathstroke.

The prospect of Manganiello as Superman intrigues, though. He certainly possessed the necessary physicality and on-screen presence to pull it off, but the jury's still out on whether he would have been a better choice than Cavill for "Man of Steel."

Another actor who almost played Superman was "White Collar" star Matt Bomer. He was in the mix around the time in which Brett Ratner was involved as the director, and it isn't too difficult to see why he would have been high up on the list of potential candidates for the project titled "Superman: Flyby." Seriously, Bomer's chiseled features look like they could have been traced out of the pages of "Action Comics," while everything about his demeanor screams Clark Kent.

In 2024, Bomer addressed his Superman audition experience and why it never materialized into something more. Appearing on The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast, he revealed that he underwent a rigorous four-month process, where he attended numerous auditions and chemistry reads across both Los Angeles and New York, as well as undertaking a screen test. According to Bomer, Ratner wanted him for the lead role, and it looked like a done deal. As it turns out, though, someone involved in the production didn't want Bomer as Superman because he was gay, so he was excluded from the casting process. "That was a time in the industry when something like that could still really be weaponized against you," Bomer explained. "How and why and who? I don't know. But yeah, that's my understanding."

Bomer would ultimately receive the opportunity to play the Man of Steel again, albeit in animated form. In 2013, he voiced the hero in the "Superman: Unbound" film.

The world recognizes Richard Donner's "Superman" as the granddaddy of comic book movies — the one that truly kickstarted the genre and showcased the potential of superheroes to be something magical and more than kids' stuff on the big screen. Donner, though, experienced a fair degree of pressure from Ilya and Alexander Salkind, who held the movie rights to Superman, to cast a big-name actor in the lead. At the time, Sylvester Stallone had exploded in Hollywood after his work on 1976's "Rocky," so he was one of the actors whom Donner met with for the role of Kal-El.

"I met with Sylvester Stallone because of [the Salkinds]," Donner told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "I tried to be nice and say, 'This is wrong.' I liked Stallone; he turned out to be a nice guy. He wanted to do it. I remember meeting him in his manager's office, and I was as cordial as I could be. He was a big star, and I'm some punk kid." Donner knew he didn't want Stallone or any of the other big names suggested, so he pushed the Salkinds to let him make his own pick, eventually choosing Christopher Reeve — and the rest is nothing but cinema history.

To be fair, Stallone would have been the totally wrong actor choice for Superman. Everyone knows he would have been a much better Batman in that era — and anyone who disagrees here is dead wrong.

Nicholas Hoult is no stranger to superhero films, having played Hank McCoy, aka Beast, in Fox's later "X-Men" movies. Yet, his further ventures into the genre haven't gone as he might have expected after his early endeavors. When director Matt Reeves narrowed down the choices for the next Caped Crusader in "The Batman," Hoult lost the part to Robert Pattinson. He was close, though — very close, in fact.

Okay, so there's always Superman if you don't land the Batman gig, right? That's probably what Hoult thought too, as he auditioned for the Man of Steel in James Gunn's "Superman." However, the actor himself experienced doubts that he was the right man for the job, especially after seeing David Corenswet strutting his stuff and being all Supermanly. "He was sitting in the sunlight, just like Superman does to charge up, to get his powers back," Hoult told Entertainment Weekly. "I looked at him and I was like, 'Wow! That's Superman.'"

It didn't turn out all bad for Hoult, as he secured the part of Lex Luthor in "Superman" instead. The actor admitted he had considered that he might be better suited to playing Lex while auditioning to be Superman (and he isn't wrong, either), so all's well that ends well here.

In the early 2000s, it was Josh Hartnett's world. He was the hottest rising star in Hollywood, and everybody wanted a piece of him. Unsurprisingly, studios circled him, trying to lock him down for their respective franchises. Yet, he didn't want to play this particular game, as Hartnett turned down the roles of Batman and Superman (twice). In fact, there is an actual photo of Hartnett wearing the iconic red and blue suit that has circulated around the internet for a while now. Despite it being obvious why Warner Bros. saw him as a worthy contender to be the Last Son of Krypton, the actor never had any interest in playing Superman — or to be sucked in, chewed up, and spat out by the Hollywood machine.

"I just didn't want my life to be swallowed up by my work," Hartnett told The Guardian in 2024. "And there was a notion at that time you just kind of give it all up. And you saw what happened to some people back then. They got obliterated by it. I didn't want that for myself."

In a separate interview, Hartnett expressed reservation over taking a superhero role since he saw many of his peers struggle to rebuild their careers after playing comic book characters. It's a fair comment made by Hartnett, seeing as the landscape was different in the early to mid-2000s. Although, one wonders if Hartnett might have done for Superman what Christian Bale did for Batman back then.

One of the best actors who almost played Superman — and might have been a heck of a pick due to his passing resemblance to the version of the character from "All-Star Superman" — was Brendan Fraser. At the time, he had established himself as a bona fide action hero thanks to his swashbuckling portrayal of Rick O'Connell in the "Mummy" franchise, so it was only logical that Fraser would be involved in talks for the J.J. Abrams-scripted "Superman: Flyby."

As Fraser revealed on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2023, the proposed film attracted all of the biggest talents in Hollywood, with "six or seven guys" being strongly considered for the part — Fraser included. The actor, though, experienced trepidation about it, explaining how he was unsure if he wanted the role of Superman to define his career and believed that may have come across in his audition.

That said, Fraser was deflated when he didn't get the thumbs-up for Superman. "I felt disappointed that there was an amazing opportunity and it didn't come to fruition," he admitted, adding that "shenanigans and studio politics," as well as his apprehensive screen test, played major parts in him not being cast. Taking into account all of the names linked to "Superman: Flyby," Fraser — along with Matt Bomer — should have easily been considered as the top choices, as both of them have the talent and look comfortable enough to play both Clark Kent and Superman.

When people talk about canceled DC movies they would still like to see, Tim Burton's "Superman Lives" often comes up. How could anyone not want to see Burton direct a movie from a script by Kevin Smith that features a long-haired Nicolas Cage slugging it out with a giant spider that shouldn't be called a spider? It's cinema in its purest form and a reminder that if you dream it, you can fool someone into greenlighting it.

The story of the making of the film has been covered by the fantastic documentary "The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened?" from Jon Schnepp, and it's as bizarre, humorous, and thrilling a tale as you can imagine. It's also an inside look into the studio system, witnessing how judgment and reason often take a backseat to the whims of studio execs who fancy themselves as creative geniuses. In all likelihood, "Superman Lives" would have become the Man of Steel's own "Batman & Robin" — and that's saying something when "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace" exists — but there's zero doubt that Cage would have brought his eccentric magic to the part. After all, did he or did he not make the "Ghost Rider" movies entertaining?

Cage would eventually cameo as Superman in "The Flash"; however, that was a scene created entirely by computer wizardry and not the man's performance. In fact, Cage's Superman was about as real as the PlayStation 2-inspired CGI baby from the opening sequence.

Before "Josstice League," the Snyder Cut, and the internet losing its collective mind over cape affairs, Warner Bros. envisioned bringing the Justice League to the big screen in the late 2000s. However, it wasn't going to be a staggered approach like the Marvel Cinematic Universe did in the lead-up to "The Avengers." Instead, the studio handed the reins to "Mad Max" director George Miller and encouraged him to make a singular team-up movie. Between the writers' strike and issues with Australia's rebate system, though, the film faded away into the Phantom Zone.

In "Justice League: Mortal," DJ Cotrona would have played Superman. At the time, Cotrona was an upcoming actor in Hollywood, so his role as the Man of Steel would have likely skyrocketed him to instant fame. Also, anyone who has seen him as the superhero version of Pedro Peña in "Shazam!" knows he looks good in a cape and suit, removing any concern he wouldn't make a good Superman.

Speaking to /Film, Cotrona recalled his positive experience working on Miller's "Justice League: Mortal" and how "it's a shame" it never came to fruition. "It was allegorical, like a story of Greek Gods almost," he said. "He was doing things with the Superman character and Batman character, and all the iconic favorites, that's never been done before. Watch 'Fury Road' and you can only imagine what he would do with those iconic characters." What a shame indeed.

Another famous actor who almost played Superman was the late Paul Walker. In an interview on "The Howard Stern Show," Brendan Fraser admitted that Walker was also in the running for the lead role in "Superman: Flyby." As it turns out, though, Walker actually turned down a potential $10 million payday after putting on the suit and realizing he didn't want to do it.

In the documentary "I Am Paul Walker" (via Deadline), Walker's manager, Matt Luber, and stunt double, Oakley Lehman, spilled the tea on the story. Both Luber and Lehman confirmed that the actor auditioned for the part. Lehman explained that Walker seriously considered it, though there was one problem. "I knew he did not want to do three or four 'Superman' [films] and be Superman for the rest of his life," Lehman explained.

Walker certainly possessed the charm to convince as the character, but it's also likely that he wouldn't have been able to continue as Brian O'Conner had he accepted the role. In retrospect, he might have made the right choice, as Paul Walker became the heart and soul of the "Fast & Furious" franchise.