Film Review - July 1987

Christopher Reeve Flies High

Interviewed by Iain McAsh

Only four years ago Christopher Reeve was saying he would never play Krypton's favourite caped crusader, or his bespectacled earthling alter ego Clark Kent, again — yet here he is back in flying harness for Superman IV. Perhaps he was inspired by former 007 Scan Connery's much publicised vow never to say never again, yet both actors finally relented to portray one last time the roles that had brought them universal recognition.

So was it the temptation of a lucrative offer he couldn't refuse which brought Reeve back to our screens as Superman?

It would be foolish to discount the financial rewards, of course, but the handsome young American actor is now wealthy enough not to make mega-bucks his criteria for accepting a role.

"I know I said I would never play Superman again," says Reeve, blue eyes flashing earnestly. "I had tired of playing him the way he was. I wanted more control over the character to bring him up-to-date in line with how today's audiences see him as a hero for the Eighties.

"To do this, I had to have a hand in developing the storyline with the two screenwriters, Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner. I enjoyed the creative input, and this was one of the conditions on which I agreed to play Superman again. When the producers originally asked me to sign for four films, there wasn't even a script in sight so that was when I said No.

"It's nine years now since I played Superman in the first of the series, Superman — the Movie. Even then certain changes had to be made to update him from the old DC Comics image. The whole world around him, including Metropolis, had changed. The pace of city life is faster, more hectic and dangerous.

"There were other things that had altered, too. In the comic strip he would change into his Superman costume in a telephone kiosk. Today in New York the phone kiosks are made of glass. . . .

"Then there's Superman's relationship with Lois Lane (played by Margot Kidder), the reporter on The Daily Planet. She's in love with him and this aspect had to be made more realistic by today's standards if audiences were to believe it.

"Actually, I had more fun playing Clark Kent, the bumbling journalist who is Lois's colleague on the newspaper. She doesn't know that Clark and Superman are really one and the same guy, so she doesn't respond to Clark's advances. She sees him just as everyone else does as a well-meaning idiot who's forever bumping into the furniture.

"Trying to create a real personality for him was more of a challenge. Playing Superman, who's the ultimate hero, doesn't leave much scope for an actor to manoeuvre."

Looking back over his decade as Superman, Chris Reeve recalls that physically he didn't seem the ideal candidate to portray the Man of Steel.

"In those days I was no Mr. Universe body-wise," he laughs. "I'm 6ft. 4in. with the right height and looks, but I had to be built up for the part. After I'd first signed to play Superman I came to England for a crash-course in the London gym run by Dave Prowse, who played Darth Vader in the Star Wars films. Over a period of months he built up my body gradually until I could convincingly fill out Superman's costume. I looked like one of those 'before' and 'after' adverts. You know, you too can have a body like Superman. Before I had been the original skinny guy. They told me I looked like Jimmy Stewart standing sideways. Dave saw that by the end of the course I had muscles in all the right places."

Although they are not directly concerned with the acting profession, Chris Reeve comes from an artistic background. His father is a well-known authority on Russian affairs who also teaches poetry, while his mother is a journalist. When they divorced, Chris was left with several stepbrothers and stepsisters. Today, the large family are involved in such vocations as education, law and medicine. "I decided at an early age that I was going to be an actor," he says. "I didn't have too much opposition, as my father naturally assumed that I would be playing classical roles, which in fact I did on stage for several years.

"After four years I graduated with my B. A. degree from Cornell, and stayed in New York to study theatre arts at the Julliard School. It was a good time as Robin Williams, Kevin Kline, William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were all there at the same time, and we've remained close friends. I also doubled up attending special evening classes with Richard Gere and Treat Williams who were starling out at the same time."

Although he received his theatre training in his native America, after graduating he flew to Britain to gain further invaluable experience of his craft. Chris spent time on stage in Glasgow before becoming a backstage hand at London's prestigious Old Vie. From there, he returned to New York via a stint at the famed Comedie Francaise in Paris.

So nobody can say that Reeve didn't earn his dues as a legitimate stage actor before donning the red-and-blue cape and tights for Superman. But, even earlier, American television had made his face known to the public in the long-running soap opera, Love of Life. "But nobody loved me." he recounts, "because I played a smoothie called Ben Harper, a real no-good character.

Things got better for Chris when he made his Broadway stage debut in the Enid Bagnold play, 'A Matter Of Gravity.' "My leading lady was Katharine Hepburn," he smiles. "You couldn't with to work with a nicer person. Any young actor can't help but learn from her experience and she taught me a lot about stagecraft."

The name of Christopher Reeve was by now beginning to mean something in showbusiness circles. It was his growing reputation which brought his first film role, albeit a supporting one, in Gray Lady Down in 1978.

After that, luck took an upward swing in his career. Superman producers Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler had already seen Chris's performance on stage in A Matter Of Gravity. Suitably impressed, they shortlisted him to play the Man of Steel in their forthcoming movie. But there were still other actors to see, auditions and screentests to be conducted before the final decision was made.

"That was the waiting game most actors of my age go through," says Reeve. "I knew Pierre and Ilya were seeing other people for the role who were more experienced than me.

Between being the Man of Steel, Reeve still yearns to return to the theatre or at least play very different roles in the non-Superman films he chooses.

One of his favourites was Somewhere In Time, a bad choice which he admits was a disaster at the box-office. He played a romantic role opposite Jane Seymour in a timewarp subject directed by Jeannot Szwarc (who was later to perform the same chore for Supergirl). Chris had more success in Sidney Lumet's film of Deathtrap, which teamed him with Michael Caine and Dyan Cannon. Plotting real-life murder inbetween writing stage plays provided an intriguing theme for the cinema based on Ira Levin's original which scored a big hit on Broadway and with audiences in London's West End.

An even more unusual role followed for Reeve in Monsignor, playing a young American priest who becomes a top member of the Vatican hierarchy involved in high-level skullduggery. Once again, he reverted in time for the Merchant/Ivory film, The Bostonians, based on the Henry James novel in which he played another romantic role opposite Vanessa Redgrave and newcomer Madeleine Potter.

For the past several years, the real lady in Chris's life has been the former British model Gae Exton. Since they first met and fell in love, they have made their homes in both London and New York, where Chris is the proud father of a son, Matthew Exton Reeve.

Between flying high in Superman II and III, Chris has starred in another movie called The Aviator which reflects another of his real-life interests. For the actor is also a skilled pilot who takes the controls of his own 'plane either for business or pleasure often flying to film locations or personal appearances at Cannes to the delight of his many fans.

But if Chris Reeve sounds like a superhero in real life, it's nothing to what he accomplishes on screen in the all-new, Superman IV. "I wanted to bring a new dimension to a well-loved character," he says. "As an actor, I'm forever looking for something special to make him exceptional. But next I'll exchange Superman's costume for Switching Channels, a modern comedy with Kathleen Turner and Burt Reynolds."

The New York-born actor is also a keen music lover, an accomplished pianist who has appeared in The Marriage Of Figaro on Broadway. As an Anglophile, his most recent London stage role was in Henry James's The Aspern Papers with Dame Wendy Hiller and Vanessa Redgrave (his Bostonians co-star) at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

In sharp contrast to Clark Kent in the Superman movies, we'll be seeing Reeve again soon as a devious New York magazine journalist in Cannon's Street Smart, directed by Jerry Schatzberg, which closed the Directors' Fortnight at this year's Cannes Festival. But first, he's back on more familiar territory as Kal-El (his true name from Planet Krypton, as any Superman buff will tell you) in Superman IV which is, incidentally, the first of the series to be filmed entirely in England.

"It's a nice image and if I'm still remembered for it in twenty years' lime you won't find me knocking it," he smiles. "It hasn't been the end of the road for my career. I've lived a quite adventurous life and there's still plenty of good other roles waiting to be played."

As actor, glider pilot, yachtsman, sailor and water-skier (another of his hobbies), you can bet Christopher Reeve still has plenty more challenges yet to face.

Looking back on his near ten-year tenure as the Man of Steel, Chris becomes mock serious as he concludes: "I just remember that in the early days of casting sessions the producer's wife's dentist almost won the role from me. My head hasn't swollen and I still take the same size in hats. It was a close thing. Just thinking of that helps to keep a guy's feet firmly on the ground."

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