Supergirl: Tyler Hoechlin on becoming the Man of Steel

The most recent actor to take on the mantle of Superman, Tyler Hoechlin, was at Fan Expo Canada to discuss The CW’s Supergirl and the upcoming crossover.

Rumours of a Superman show joining the Arrowverse have been around since the first season of Supergirl aired. But there’s no solo show on the horizon, current Superman actor Tyler Hoechlin told a packed room at Fan Expo Canada. Hoechlin seems content with this for now – he was supposed to appear as the Man of Steel in only two episodes originally but has featured in seven episodes across Supergirl and the crossovers so far. Hoechlin’s Superman will also appear in the upcoming Arrowverse crossover, “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.

As of Fan Expo Canada, Hoechlin had not been privy to any scripts for the crossover, but he did have to cut his session short to fly out to film it. Instead, Hoechlin spoke about his approach to bringing the boy scout in blue back to television screens.

To the surprise of many, Hoechlin hasn’t seen the Christopher Reeve films – he’s planning to watch them after the crossover has aired, now that he’s made his own mark on the character. Instead, Hoechlin researched Superman the character (everything from Wikipedia entries to fanpages) to portray Clark Kent accurately and uniquely on Supergirl:

"I haven’t seen any of the other Superman stuff. And once I knew I was going to play the character, I intentionally stayed away from it. For me, I didn’t want to see something that I either liked, and then felt the pressure to copy or something that I liked, and then felt the pressure to stay away from. I also didn’t want to do something that I didn’t like, and then feel the same kind of thing.I wanted to have the freedom to go in, read the script, know how we saw the character in this universe. And be able to commit to whatever came to mind and felt right, without feeling like ‘oh, it’s a little too close to this’, or ‘it’s too far away from that’."

From Hoechlin’s replies to fan questions, it is obvious that he has the pulse of what makes Superman such an iconic character. As he explained it, Hoechlin loves that Superman has a “lack of ego”, which comes into focus when one realises there are multiple versions of the character in the multiverse. Hoechlin’s own beliefs about redemption tie into his interpretation of Superman – Superman is an optimist and will always be hopeful that people can be redeemed.

Hoechlin was also positive about how Superman ended the “Elseworlds” crossover last year. His decision to temporarily hang up his cape to start a family with Lois Lane on Argo, thereby leaving Earth under his cousin, Supergirl’s protection, came from him being able to trust Kara enough since she’d proved her mettle as a superhero. Hoechlin felt that it was a great moment for Superman to pass on the baton of Earth’s protector to Supergirl.

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Early on in his career, Hoechlin was touted as being the next Batman, which isn’t a surprise since he made a name for himself as morally ambiguous antihero Derek Hale on Teen Wolf. Those rumours never came to fruition, and Hoechlin seems pleased about it. At this stage in his life, Hoechlin likes “happy” and is attracted to the role of Superman because he’s a “hopelessly romantic, nice guy”:

"I love Clark’s hope for humanity; I love Superman’s relentless in thinking that someday we will all figure it out."

Hoechlin was excited that “Crisis on Infinite Earths” will feature another Superman as Brandon Routh (from DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) will don the cape once again as an alternate-Earth Man of Steel. Hoechlin played two versions of Superman during the last crossover, and he seemingly didn’t care for playing dark Superman or pulling “double duty” for the role either. Will there be other versions of Superman in the crossover? We will only find out in December.

Supergirl returns on October 6, and we can catch Tyler Hoechlin during “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, starting December 8.