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May 24, 2013: Deborah Snyder Talks "Man of Steel"

Deborah Snyder, Producer on "Man of Steel" and wife of Director Zack Snyder, spoke with SFX Magazine about the movie, the costume choices and physical preparation the actors underwent to prepare for their roles. Here's a few excerpts from the interview...

What about the Lois and Clark relationship? How does that relate to previous incarnations of Superman we've seen?

I think that our Lois is a little feistier and stronger. I think both characters are more realistic to us, to society now. Clark to me was always too good to really relate to. He was a little too much this perfect boy scout, and although Lois was feisty and strong she was still always the one being rescued. Not to say that she doesn't get rescued in our movie, but she rescues him right back, in so many other ways, emotionally. And in our film, in our last setpiece, she has a very strong position. There's something that she needs to accomplish in this plan in order for it to work. I like seeing that she's a really strong female character, and very proactive.

The costume is obviously a crucial part of the Superman iconography. How did you go about bringing it to the screen?

It's a daunting process, because you want to be true, and we're very respectful of the canon. But you also have to look at what's happening on the screen right now with superhero costumes. It has to be relatable to a modern audience. But at the same time you don't want to say "Who is that? That kinda looks like Superman..." It has to read, at first blush, as Superman. We went through so many iterations of the costume and yes, Zack did try very hard to make the underpants on the outside of the costume work - there are nods to it, with the belt and with some of the side detail on the costume, and that just felt more appropriate to the movie we were making. The other thing that was important for Zack was that the costume not come out of nowhere. It had to have a reason. We were building a world. We go to Krypton and we see this world, and we see that everything has its place. If they're in space he wanted it to feel like a space suit, and he wanted it to feel like the underlayer that they would maybe put armour over. It's also a caped society, so when you go to Krypton he wanted to see variations of this costume. And knowing that it was a caped society he wanted that to be evident when we were on Krypton, so when Clark finally finds the costume and puts it on you've established where it's come from.

Read the entire interview at the SFX website.