“Everybody is looking for a hero. I am not a hero. That was a part. I played the part. I’m not that man” A man once famously said.
Superman is considered a global symbol. Now and then you find few actors that manage to embody the character, as if they were born to play the role. You could argue no one was more perfect to represent Superman than Christopher Reeve. He was one of the biggest names in the world. An actor with a love for all types of films and theatre. But it wasn’t until taking on Superman that everything changed for him and the world.
His films helped pave the way for comic book movies to flourish in the industry. Be a part of cinema, and pop culture. Whether it is Burton’s Batman, Raimi’s Spider-Man, the X-Men, Nolan’s Batman trilogy or the MCU. All these franchises and modern Hollywood can be traced back to Reeve’s Superman which started it all.
Following the later portion of Christopher’s career, where he had a lot of success. Rightly adored by the world. He faced a horrific accident where he fell from a horse and was left paralysed from the neck down. This changed everything for him and his family. The world’s invulnerable Superman is now seemingly the most vulnerable. He is now just a man who can die like anyone else.
So many of us know about Superman, a global icon. We know that Christopher Reeve played him and birthed the superhero movie genre. But how many actually know about the man behind the cape? Behind Superman, there is a man who went through so much, fighting for himself and his family against all odds.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a documentary that helps bring his story to light that hasn’t been possible before. From compiling thousands of hours of archival footage and speaking with the Reeve family. To collaborating with many others who were important in Christopher’s life. We learn about the man behind Superman and the tragedy he faced and endured.
We sat down with director Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhôte for a roundtable discussion. Speaking about the development of their new documentary Super/man: The Christopher Reeve Story. Touching on Reeve’s career both high and low, his fatal accident and the impact his family had on his life.
Zak Ahmed (THH): We get a clip from Christopher’s audiobook, where he mentions that while he was in hospital, his life played out before him but not in order. It feels like that portion of the documentary was also edited in a non linear way to match. Was that intentional and could you elaborate?
Ian Bonhôte: Actually, some of the structure that Peter’s alluded to was inspired as well from the audiobook, from the book itself, and it being an audiobook. But that sequence you alluded to was actually almost a gift, because you could use that you almost apologise or excuse or justify the structure we gave afterwards. So it was 100% intentional and is not a single frame or single sound or single music note that is not intentional in our films.
You know, I don’t want to sound heavy, but you have to direct every single aspect of the film. It’s just you know, you don’t have to make up, you don’t have the costume like in fiction. But as Peter said, you’ve got the archive, you’ve got how the archive comes in comes out. How do you mix intimate personal archive with interviews from outlets when they were at the height of the fame. The interviews of the people which is that we always try to think about it as a fiction film where there is different dialogues.
But that moment in particular you mentioning is very much first of all, it is extremely visual. At the same time, we could do something a bit more like a music video. Or something a bit mad because you’re almost hallucinating with it. But then afterwards as I said, it just defined the fact that, we have different moments of his life that clashes.
Peter Ettedgui: I would just say, well spotted because that line you just created, it was in our first page. It was the very first thing we wrote. That was, you know, we want to quote that as you said to justify our proof, because sometimes, I think it’s true with us that with this film that some of the executives that we were working with was very very collaborative and happy collaboration, but some of them were skeptical about the structure. So we come back
Ian: and skeptical, because you know.
Peter: How’s it gonna work?
Ian: No, you showed him a film which is two and half hours. I’d be skeptical. The thing is that when you become, when you make more and more film, more and more you in the industry, more and more you realise there’s a lot of people whose opinion. But really, few your opinion you should listen to.
Not to become too, egotistical but there’s only, I mean with 2 directors and a very strong editor. Otto Bonham is a great editor, but that’s already 3 voices. If we agree the 3 of us, that probably covers a lot of other human beings.
Do you see what I mean? And you have to have that, and you have to in fiction, you have a script that everybody judge, and then people judge the execution of that script. The performance, the lighting, the use of the choreography, the use of the shock.
In non-fiction, that script is kind of written as we have a sort of draft. But it’s kind of written on the way. And it’s basically like showing four or five drafts before the final draft, and you always have to say, when people watch the film, youve already have comments yourself.
When you show two and a half hours, you’re not gonna have a two and a half hours film. But you had to show them something and they give you 80% of the nose, they’re like, yeah, we fucking know, it’s 2 and a half hours long. Do you see what I mean? Sorry, pardon my French. But I think that’s the thing.
Ian also tells us the surprises he encountered when making the film. How integral Reeve’s family were in bringing Christopher’s life story to the screen.
“I think the fact that we ended up making the film more about the family. The fact that Dana took such a massive role in the film is something I wasn’t expecting at the start. We got approached to make a film about this, and then you start digging into his life story. Then you start meeting with the 3 Reeve children, and then you just realise, Oh my God they’re amazing. Oh my God the impact of the accident and then the death was so massive on the family.
That is something definitely the film shape changed quite drastically but again we are not dogmatic when we start a film. We have a vision of what we wanna do but we are always ready to adapt to archive or something that one of our contributors say. But we always try to make the film about the really important people and very quickly we realised they were the three most important people.”
Peter also mentioned how he went about finding parallels between Christopher’s personal life and his career in Hollywood to create an emotional through-line for the documentary.
“The most important thing when you set up to make any film whether it is fictional or non fictional, is to think about the shape. The structure of the story you’re going to tell and how that is going to release the emotional content. That’s not just form for form sake, it’s always, you got to think about what is the content. What would you try to express through the story.
And I think that from the very beginning, what we actually wanted to avoid was a typical biopic cradle to grave episodic structure, because we felt that happened too many times. That wouldn’t let the story breathe in any way that an audience would really be able to experience the emotions that we wanted to experience.
So, pretty soon we kind of like realised that most dramatic point of the film, alas, but amazingly for filmmaking was the accident because that is the lowest ebb that you can possibly imagine in anyone’s life, really.
So if you start at that point, and then you carry that through and you start seeing that there’s this sort of extraordinary shape to it, discovering going from all the suicidal despair to to realising that there’s still a reason to live, even if it’s just for his family and for his friends, and you know, it was Dana saying you’re still you, I love you, or whether Robin Williams making him laugh. You have those moments, and then, you know, that’s one sort of like very positive thing that happens after this extraordinarily made thing.
And then you have, you know, there’s this sort of discovery of a new sense of purpose for your life, and the realisation that actually, you know, in some profound aspect, what this tragic thing that has happened to you is actually something that you can use for good, both in your own life and in terms of your own relationships, but also in terms of the broader world, that’s just like the most wonderful gift of the story, those 9 years. So we knew that although, this was a story in a sensibly about the guy who played the original OGs superhero, we knew that the story was not going to be, that wasn’t a good story, how it got cast.
It was important that we told that story, but the really important emotional story was gonna be those 9 years. And then it was a kind of question of how we used breaks in that story to bring in the past. In a way as you rightly said, sort of like it kind of counterpoints or mirrors things that were happening to him on, you know, how his fall and new rise after the accident parallels his very sharp rise and then fall off in declining his career in the past.
And so we knew we would have those things that we counterpoint to each other. So that was the shape, and that’s the theory that was in our head from the very beginning. But obviously as we went on the journey of making the film, and this is the beautiful thing about non fiction is that it’s intention and accident. You kind like suddenly discover things. We didn’t realise the three kids were going to be the heroes of our story. At the beginning of the film, we needed them because of the archive we knew we were going to do interviews with them. But gradually as we got to know them and become friends with them, we realised actually these three are the most important 3 in the story.”
Anyone that thinks about Christopher Reeve is likely to also think about Superman. How the film was the birth of the superhero genre, which has been especially relevant in the 21st century to the point it dominates the blockbuster market. With many billions of dollars resulting in the box office. It’s an oversaturated market and while it isn’t as successful as it was before Covid, the interest is always present as long as original stories are told.
Peter explains why he showed clips of other films from Christopher’s career to better understand the actor he was. But to give context to how special Chris’s presence was. A particular scene in the Superman film where he seamlessly changes between Clark and Kal, perfectly epitomises the kind of talent he was on screen.
“The the truth is that when we were researching the film, we were watching a lot of Christopher in different films. From great films like Deathtrap to the TV movies of the week, which are not so great. But he has to pay the bills. So you got a sense of a real working actor’s career in that, and that was very important for us.
I think some people may justifiably think, you guys didn’t do proper justice to some of his other performances. But you have to make choices and then you have to stick to your lane. So we absolutely wanted to show some of his other work in the context of the fact that that work, once he’d made Superman, that was it. That was like the top of his career and he constantly fought against that.
He felt trapped by Superman and he pushed himself to deal whether it was working in the theatre, taking small parts and films. He wanted to somehow break free of Superman. I don’t think he ever really did. That was the context which we wanted to take his other work, and we had to have that context. It’s really important for the themes of the film in a way.“
Ian: A lot of yous have grown up through the era of massive amounts of superhero films since 2005. At the time he (Superman) was the first one. He is probably responsible for that as well. Suddenly the studio saw a huge amount of money 400-500 million dollars for the first film in the 70s, that’s like probably the equivalent of 1.5-2 billion dollars now.
So it’s probably in equivalence, not money equivalence. How much it was at the time to get to that number so quickly. I think that’s what attracted us. Like wow, first as a documentary, you don’t get to talk about Superman much because we’re not gonna make the next Superman
Peter: We might do!
Ian: I think James Gunn is better than us. But the thing is, looking about how that evolving may change into the way we perceive movies. So he is the OG yeah.
Peter: Just to add, we found there’s been a footage that I was determined to get in the film but actually had nothing to do with the film we were making. Kevin Feige talked about how before they make any Marvel film, they sit down and watch Christopher Reeve’s performance in the first Superman film because that’s the conditions of a superhero. I think that’s also very true for James Gunn who moved over from Marvel to DC
Ian: Why did he move? Must be the excitement of restarting Superman. There’s something magical about Superman. I think still from any of the other superheroes, they mix them up with other superheroes. Superman is Superman on his own kind of thing. Then they try to make Superman and Batman to make more money but I think the way James is going back to the original Superman. I think he’s made the right choice.
Peter: We were told after because the film was made completely independently. Warner only came in after our premiere at Sundance. Boy, did they come in? They kind of love bombed us, it was very flattering. I did think we were in with a chance of making a Superman film at that point. They told us a couple weeks later, after they acquired the film, that they’d shown the film to the cast of the new Superman film on location in Atlanta, where they were filming, and how much it had inspired everybody.
So it’s nice to know that Chris has sort of inspired both the MCU and the new DC universe. We can all make our personal decisions as to whether this whole superhero domination of cinema is a good or bad thing.
Ian: It’s dying out. There’s less of them now, actually moved to TV. I think it’s different now. With a young actor, they’d probably be within 20 and 30, it’s almost a step to success. You need to be one of them for the paycheck and for the exposure. Many people are making their careers because they do this role. It was a risk at the time, because there was nothing done before. Right now, a huge amount of very good actors that might go on to make a really small independent film do them for certain reasons.
Peter: It’s easier now I think, being a superhero.
Ian: I agree: Now, the wild thing for actors is going to be in a play. All the theatre plays in London makes such a big deal when there’s a Hollywood person.
We finally talk about the aftermath of Christopher’s accident and how the industry wasn’t disability friendly at the time. It’s especially noticeable when Chris gets ready for his Oscar speech and has to deal with numerous setbacks like transport, insurance and mobilisation. Ian explains how making the documentary shifted their views on the world and disabilities.
Ian: I think it started with our previous film we made called Rising Phoenix, about the Paralympic movement. And the perspective started to change now. We moved offices and we wanted to stay in Soho. There’s hardly any offices that are disability friendly for anyone which would need a lift to go somewhere. Let alone visual or hearing impairments, etc. So it is very tricky to have a disability in this industry as well. I think if you do fiction, on Rising Phoenix, we had one of our researcher Ella Beaumont
Peter: Who came to us for Superman as well.
Ian: We wanted her to be on set as well. So we had to be triply careful and he made our choices for location a lot tighter. To be able to accommodate everyone. Some creative people might not want to embrace that because they need the film to represent what they have in their mind. I think what the film does for me personally is the shift is how we need to keep our society accountable for many things of our inclusion in general. For many reasons we don’t need to mention on this table.
I’ve been in this industry for a long time. In the UK you can hear my accent, I’m not a Brit. But the industry doesn’t have one person at the top saying, you can’t get in or you know the right person, or you’re a woman, you’re disabled or whatever. I think it’s laziness, lack of understanding of different stories. Inclusion means you get a bigger perspective in a sense of you broaden your horizon as an individual. It’s very much understanding each other and perspective.
Peter: This kind of goes back to Christopher’s problems getting into the Oscars. Talking about Ella, the daily routine is so much tougher. She’s paraplegic and sometimes there wasn’t somebody to help her get on the train or the stations didn’t have a lift. It is more difficult, more challenging for both the person and the employer. We already knew that from Rising Phoenix. We had a lot of extraordinary stories and we had made a commitment on that film to have people with disabilities working with us on the team and we took that into Superman.
One of the shifts that happened during the making of Superman was that we thought Christopher was heroic because of his advocacy and activism but before we discovered the controversy that some of the work inspired. Ella would say to us, this whole thing about trying to fix disability. That’s really quite offensive to people with disabilities. Ella is born with a disability so it is very different. That made us open our eyes to another way of looking at Christopher’s story. That those elements of controversy were very important for a long time for Christopher to see his life post accident. He actually says it took breaking my neck for me to learn some of this stuff which is a key line in the film.
This interview has been edited for consistency and clarity.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeves Story is out now in theatres.
