Rachel Brosnahan has a message for actors who star in failed and embarassing superhero movies: Own your shit.
The actress — who plays Lois Lane in James Gunn’s upcoming Superman — got on the subject of actors dissing their superhero projects during a recent Interview Magazine chat with Amanda Seyfried.
The exchange started with Seyfried saying about superhero movies, “That’s the thing about these movies: You can feel it when people are doing it with passion and grace and curiosity.”
To which Brosnahan replied: “I don’t know why people say yes [to a project] only to then turn around and complain about it. Look, I don’t want to shit on other actors, but there was a minute where it was cool to not like superhero movies and to look back on projects like this and pooh-pooh them. Do it or don’t do it, and then stand by it.”
It’s a sentiment that directors like Gunn — and studios executives like Gunn — would certainly agree with: You made this movie too, it’s a team effort, don’t take the paycheck and then diss the film.
On the other hand, actors have a right to their own opinions about their work and sometimes what you sign on for isn’t what you end up making.
That’s certainly been the case made by Dakota Johnson about her 2024 Sony flop Madame Web, telling Bustle, “I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, Wait, what? But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.”
Madame Web co-star Sydney Sweeney joked while hosting Saturday Night Live, “You might have seen me in Anyone But You or Euphoria. You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.”
And Christian Bale criticized — no, not his Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy — but rather his experience making 2022’s Marvel disappointment Thor: Love and Thunder.
“The definition of it is monotony,” he told GQ about acting against a green screen in the film. “You’ve got good people. You’ve got other actors who are far more experienced at it than me. Can you differentiate one day from the next? No. Absolutely not. You have no idea what to do. I couldn’t even differentiate one stage from the next. They kept saying, ‘You’re on Stage 3.’ Well, it’s like, ‘Which one is that?’ ‘The blue one.’ They’re like, ‘Yeah. But you’re on Stage 7.’ ‘Which one is that?’ ‘The blue one.’ I was like, ‘Uh, where?’”
Also, of course, Ryan Reynolds has made mocking his 2011 Green Lantern movie into an ongoing punchline.
Brosnahan’s Superman opens July 11 and focuses on the titular superhero, who made his way to Earth from the planet Krypton and grapples with his powers while blending in as journalist Clark Kent.