A fun surprise in the latest “Superman” movie was the appearance of Bradley Cooper as Superman’s biological father. He’s only in the movie for a minute, and he’s seen exclusively through a recording he left for Superman when he sent him off to Earth as a baby. The limited screentime means there’s basically no time to get used to the casting, so most of the time he’s on screen, the viewer’s left thinking, “Wait, is that Bradley Cooper?” and then wondering how and why he was cast in the role.
In a recent interview, director/writer James Gunn explained how the Cooper cameo came to be. He explained how, from day one, he was looking for someone who’d match the vibes of Marlon Brando, the actor who played Superman’s father Jor-El in the 1978 movie. “I needed somebody who could play Jor-El, who had the stature of what we imagine that character to be,” Gunn said. “Somebody that could walk in the footsteps of Marlon Brando.”
That person, it turned out, was someone who Gunn had already worked with on three separate “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. “Really, Bradley’s just doing me a favor,” Gunn told People Magazine. “He’s a friend. We’ve stayed in close contact since the ‘Guardians’ movies, and I admire him greatly as an actor and as a director.” Gunn claimed he called Cooper and said, “Hey, will you do me a favor? Come down, go to England, we’re going to shoot you in a 3D environment, make a hologram of you, and you can play Jor-El.” Cooper was apparently completely on board.
Bradley Cooper as Jor-El: did it work?
While the big-name cameo for Jor-El may have been distracting, it also helped to make the movie’s big twist around the character — that he’d sent Superman to Earth to enslave humanity, not protect them — hit so much harder. Cooper is an inherently charming actor, someone who viewers have essentially been trained to like and trust over the past 25 years. He’s someone the audience wants to believe in, just like Superman wants to; when we find out Jor-El’s true nature, we share Superman’s desire to believe the video’s been doctored. If someone like Willem Dafoe had played Superman’s dad, we would’ve seen that twist coming from a mile away.
The casting of such a likeable actor in such an unlikeable role helped the movie nail its most interesting twist on this new version of Superman, that this is a hero who fully rejects the morals of his home world. The fact that Superman is such a good person despite his Kryptonian origins, not because of them, is a take that’s arguably even more optimistic than the usual dynamic “Superman” stories offer us.
When asked if Cooper might return for a “Superman” sequel, Gunn answered, “You never know. It’s possible.” Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine how Jor-El could return given that he died 30 years before the first movie began, but it’s not like death has ever stopped comic book movies before.
