Actor Nicholas Hoult Discusses His Failed Auditions for Both Batman and Superman

Could you imagine getting the opportunity to audition for both Batman and Superman and not getting either part? That’s what Nicholas Hoult went through before being cast as Lex Luthor in the upcoming Superman movie. Hoult, who played Hank McCoy in the later X-Men films was a schedule to audition for Matt Reeves film when, “I remember a week before we did the Batman test, I was driving in my car and I had the radio on and they were talking on the radio about how Rob was going to be the new Batman. And I was like, ‘It’s not confirmed yet! I’m auditioning next weekend. Like, give me a chance.’”

Hoult talked about the emotional experience while a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Your imagination does not know … you are aware on a practical level: ‘I know I am auditioning against Rob.’ And Rob is fantastic in that movie. That was the right decision. But you get excited by the prospect. Matt [Reeves] is a fantastic director and the script. It’s a cool movie and I want to be a part of it. It’s a brilliant character. There’s a weird period before you can get to the acceptance and see the movie and be like that was the right choice, you go through the period of ‘what could I have done different? Why not me?’ You run through all those things.”

Hoult would then audition for and lose out on the role of Superman for James Gunn, but Gunn was aware of the situation. Hoult explained, “James Gunn is such a fantastic director and I was so excited by what he was building at DC. When we spoke…because they knew I had been through [the Batman] process, they didn’t want me to necessarily have to go through that again. That was very kind of them. There was an element of them being like, ‘We like you as an actor. We want you to be in this world.’”

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