SUPERMAN III - GENERAL/MEDIA

STARLOG 72 1983

ANNETTE O'TOOLE THE NEW WOMAN IN SUPERMAN'S LIFE She's Lana Lang, "the girl he left behind" in his youth -- and the lost lover he embraces once more in "Superman III."
By Robert Greenberger

When Superman III opens this month, audiences will see Lois Lane walk in -- and then out -- of the picture. What? No love story? What's happening here? Quite simply, it's an attempt to explore some new dramatic territory in this third super-saga, concentrating on the Clark Kent persona instead of the well-worn Superman/Clark/Lois triangle.

Screenwriters David and Leslie Newman have opened the door to innovation by returning Lana Lang, Clark Kent's high school sweetheart to the story. She was seen only briefly in the first feature, in the person of actress Diane Sherry. Now, it is 1983, and Lana is a mature, attractive woman.

When Clark attends a reunion at Smallville High School, they meet again, rediscovering each other, rekindling a love which lay dormant for years.

For actress Annette O'Toole, playing Lana Lang is almost a dream come true. The 33-year-old redhead has been a comics fan since childhood. "I was a real Superman comic-book child," she says, sitting in her Southern California home. "It's funny playing a character with whom you sort of grew up. My agent had called and said, 'They want you to play the new girl in Superman.' I asked if it was Lana Lang and he said, 'I don't know.' I got all excited because I thought, 'Oh, good, the bad girl is going to come and take Superman away from Lois Lane.' But this character turned out to be very different from the comic books."

The Lana Lang for whom O'Toole has such fond memories had been Lois's rival in romantic pursuit of the Man of Steel for nearly 20 years of comic tales. Their rivalry died in 1969 and hasn't been seen as a story element since.

O'Toole re-acquainted herself with the four-color Superman when "my fiancee gave me four copies of the new comics. He bought them when he heard I was going to play the part. I know a little bit more about her now."

Interestingly, the Newmans wrote Lana with O'Toole in mind, after watching her perform on stage in San Diego. "I was in a play called Yankee Wives," she recalls. "It's about the wives of Yankee ballplayers who are sort of thrown together; many different sorts of women who wouldn't otherwise be friends. I played a real naive Georgia peach, really wide-eyed. Her husband becomes a big baseball star, and she changes, too."

BECOMING LANA LANG

At first the Houston-born actress was a bit apprehensive about portraying Lana Lang. Regardless of the quality of her performance, the media spotlight will focus on her more strongly now than at any other time in her 15-year career. "It was the con which made me pause when I was sorting out the pros and cons of accepting the role," she admits. "Press attention has eluded me for a good reason: I haven't pursued it. I am going to get a great deal of media attention; I'll be sort of a celebrity for a while. I really don't know how I feel about that idea.

"I have a feeling I'll be recognizable. People don't seem to approach me much -- basically, they look at me and only talk to me, thinking we went to high school together. I'm somebody they think they've known. I'm a little nervous about all that happening because it takes you away from real life. I'm trying to keep my feet on the ground. I realize what's really important to me. Hopefully, I will have a house in Oregon as a place to escape."

On April 8, 1983, O'Toole married actor Bill Guyslinger, whom she calls "a wonderful person." Guyslinger works primarily in regional theater productions around the country. The two had just become engaged at the time of the Superman III offer; O'Toole disliked the notion of being seperated from her new fiance for three months. "But it was such a wonderful opportunity," she stresses, "and it turned out that I did have time in between. I was in London for a month, came home for a month and then went to Calgary for another month. The actual physical traveling was pretty nice. I had been to London previously, so it was nice being in a place I knew while making Superman III."

O'Toole flew to London last summer to begin work on this supersequel, meeting director Richard Lester only two days before the start of principal photography. It's a small fact, but one that amazes an actress who has spent years auditioning for numerous roles. "It's my biggest part, in terms of the meaning of the character to the film," she says, "and I didn't audition, I didn't read...I didn't do anything to get it. It was all done through the agency, which took much of the pressure off me. It was the first time I have ever had that experience."

Her meeting with Lester went well, helped along by the fact that the two shared many of the same ideas about Lana Lang. Then, it was time to meet the "big S" himself, Christopher Reeve. "Chris and I got together and talked," O'Toole recalls. "His ideas were very similar to mine -- to not make this story a cartoon but to play it as people who have real problems. We discussed what kind of relationship Lana and Clark would have so it was very, very pleasant. Of course, in England, people bring you tea every five minutes. That was very nice.

"We were playing people who had had an early relationship, so we sort of had to fill that area in. We would just sit, talk -- we didn't even have to talk that much -- and watch what was happening. I found Chris to be a very calming person; he handles all the super pressure of being Superman very well. From those first days, he made me feel at home, this newcomer added to something which has been going on for five years."

In approaching her interpretation of Lana Lang, O'Toole couldn't rely on the Lana Lang of the comics since the Newmans had only used the name, not the character. "I saw Lana as the young working mother," the actress concludes after some thought. "I looked at everyone in the film and who they represented in America. I always thought of Lois as the career woman.

"Lana was the symbol of all the girls who got married right out of high school, had a baby and were left behind. She's making it on her own and doing very well," O'Toole pauses for a moment and adds, "until Clark Kent re-enters her life. Now, she realizes there's this big hole; she wants something for herself again. That was the basic idea. We took it from there. I tried to keep it simple.

"And there's something very sweet about the lost love between Clark and Lana... and their finding it again."

When they meet again after all these years, says O'Toole, "Lana sees the real person with whom she grew up. As a teenager, Lana was more impressed with football heroes. Now, she realizes that Clark was the guy she enjoyed talking to and being with the most. Everybody in Metropolis knows him from the act he puts on for them. Lana knew him as a boy. She has all this other background on him that no one else knows. To her, he's just a normal man."

Contrary to the motion picture version, the Lana Lang in the pages of the current Superman comics isn't walking around with a child beside her. In the film, however, she has a young son. Furthermore, the movie Lana is not interested in stealing Superman away from Lois Lane. O'Toole says that the Lana of Superman III has "an interesting sort of twist. When I first heard about the role, I was thinking in pure comic book terms, I really wanted her bad -- not evil, just sort of plotting to take him away from Lois. I thought, 'Oh, well, really, she is kind of good.' The more I worked and thought about it, the more I liked it because it makes her so different from Lois Lane. Lana Lang was sort of empty, to be that age and not have a career and to have a child. I mean, what was she doing all this time? I like the character now.

"These changes also give Superman a chance to have a family. I don't know the kinds of problems Superman has. I don't know if he can have a child with an Earthling, so this gives him a ready-made family to adopt."

Only once during the entire film does Lana get to meet the Man of Steel in person... and she's not all that impressed. "He's a celebrity and it's great but he's really not real," O'Toole explains. "Lana is impressed because he's a celebrity, but it's no big deal for her. She's not beside herself and can't speak with him, or any type of behavior like that. She handles it very well. If I were to meet someone whom I've really looked up to for years, like Marlon Brando, I wouldn't really believe it was Marlon Brando. Personalities are not really that impressive in an everyday setting, because they do the same mundane things we all do."

O'Toole reveals the only disappointment about her work in Superman III. "Yeah, I really wanted to fly... really badly. It was explained to me how it works and I thought, 'I could do that, I could fly.' I've danced, I know how to hold my body. I thought they should add a scene with Lana Lang in the air."

BECOMING AN ACTRESS

Superman III represents a supermarker of Annette O'Toole's show business career, which has its roots back home in Texas. "My mother was a dancing teacher and I started taking dance from the time I was three," O'Toole says. "When I was 13, my family moved out to Los Angeles and I began acting lessons. I would get jobs here there, starting with The Danny Kaye Show. I was never successful as a child actor. I did a few commercials and things like The Courtship of Eddie's Father. At 17, I started studying acting in depth, attending a class which, fortunately, was very good, with a very good teacher. I left singing and dancing behind at that point. Those careers seemed very short to me, while acting could go on forever."

At 18, the guest star roles in episodic television began. O'Toole even served a three-month stint on Bright Promise, a short-lived soap opera. Her big break came when she starred in Smile, a 1975 feature about a California beauty contest, a job she gained after doing her impression of a "dead cockroach" at the audition. Numerous telefilm roles followed including Love for Rent and Stand By Your Man -- in which she showcased her voice, playing country music legend Tammy Wynette.

O'Toole has also performed in theaters around the country, including a run in Los Angeles as one of the cheerleaders in Vanities (taped for broadcast on cable TV's Showtime). Dividing her time between stage and screen these days, O'Toole was briefly seen as Nick Nolte's bartender girl friend in 48 Hrs., although most of her footage was left on the cutting room floor.

The red-haired actress has always been very selective about her career, choosing roles which are both different and challenging. She considers herself fortunate, having been well-paid for her early work and never felt financially forced to take roles she didn't want.

"It's hard when there isn't that much to choose from," she states. "You choose the best you can and you bring yourself to the role. I look, mainly, for good writing, a good script which is interesting to me. Basically, it's the story and character. You look and, if you've only gotten a few scripts, you wait around a great deal. In the meantime, you do plays and sit in class and study. If you feel you can't make acting work or make it distinctive for yourself, then there's no point in doing it.

"There are times you look at a script and think, 'Well, the part's not that great, but there are these other reasons to do it: I would be working with this actor or director with whom I've wanted to work. If they're open about a part, maybe there's something I can bring to it and make suggestions. Some people are open to suggestions and others aren't. Each part is so different."

One typical aspect of an Annette O'Toole character is a streak of independence and strength, as evidenced in such roles as the lonely rich girl of Foolin' Around and the zoo worker in the 1982 remake of Cat People. O'Toole laughs about the latter movie. "It's very different from what I expected," she says of the Paul Schrader film. "It really shows you how a director takes a script and makes it his own. I thought it was fascinating. I got the script for this nice little horror film. I was very surprised to see it become this other thing. And it was a beautiful film, visually. It just wasn't what I expected. Cat People isn't my sort of film, but it was interesting to act in anyhow."

O'Toole says she much prefers science fiction in the Ray Bradbury vein to the horrors in outer space as seen in Alien. "I couldn't watch Alien and I read the script beforehand, but I couldn't stay there," she says. "It was so bizarre and weird and I was so frightened. I had to leave the theater."

Cat People's gory graphics also surprised the actress, who adds, "I still cringe when I see Ed Begley [who played another zoo keeper] get his arm ripped off. That's what I meant when I said I wouldn't necessarily go and see it, if I hadn't been in the film. I can't stomach it. Even when I was there during the filming and knew it was a mechanical arm -- well, Eddie Begley is a really good friend of mine and has been for 10 years and it was so disturbing... ooohhh!"

At this point, O'Toole is too busy to think about other work. Wedding plans occupied her for the first half of 1983 and, when she returned from a two-week honeymoon in Ireland in late April, she began seriously considering offers. O'Toole and husband Guyslinger are also preparing for the theater launch of Superman III and the onslaught of media attention.

Still, the energetic actress is interested in playing roles which stretch her abilities. She aspires to play certain "dream roles," especially some Shakespearian parts and other classic creations from such playwrights as Anton Checkov. "As an actress, I could do pretty much anything," O'Toole says confidently. "I've finally come to the realization, though, that I'm not just suited for every part. There are limits -- I can't play everything. I get many dumb scripts and I wouldn't do them. There are the classic roles I want to play that everyone else also says they want to do, but I really want to do that stuff."

Amidst the tumult of integrating her new marriage into an already complex existence, Annette O'Toole stops to consider her career as a whole. "I'm generally pleased. There are some things I look back on and wish I had done differently, or had never done at all. But I can't really complain. I feel fulfilled. You get to a point where it doesn't matter that much anymore that someone else got the part, it just can't be your whole life -- I'm taking that pretty well now. And I'm very happy."