‘Super/Man’ Director Reveals the Real Christopher Reeve: Superman On and Off Screen (EXCLUSIVE)
As this documentary reveals, the screen's Superman proved even more inspirational in real life
Insofar as the public is concerned, there are two sides to actor Christopher Reeve, the one that first brought the Man of Steel to life in 1978’s Superman: The Movie, and established his portrayal of the character to be the one that all others are measured against. And then there is the superman that he proved himself to be following the horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down, but resulted in his showing courage, determination and empathy for millions of others as he became an advocate for spinal cord research and awareness. Both are on full display in the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which is currently streaming on Max.
Made with the full cooperation—but not the influence—of the Reeve estate, Super/Man is brought to life by writer/directors Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettegui, who use the making of the Superman film—especially Reeve’s casting and preparation for the role—as a backdrop to tell the rest of the actor’s story. To elaborate on it all in the following interview is Peter Ettegui, who it’s obvious has been as touched by telling the story as we are watching it.
WOMAN’S WORLD (WW): What was the impetus for this project?
PETER ETTEDGUI: It’s kind of multifaceted. The most important thing to say is that Daniel Kilroy, who is an archive producer, had reached out to Matthew Reeve and his siblings to find out if they had any archive and if there’d be any interest in them lending the archive to a film. It was all a bit kismet, really, in that Matthew and Alexandra and Will had just sold their parents’ property in Bedford, in upstate New York. And in the process of emptying the house, there was all of these boxes of Christopher’s old home videos and so on. They had just rediscovered that archive, so, obviously, there was an archive. Additionally, they felt that they were at the right time in their lives to kind of engage with the possibility of a film.
They’d always steered clear of the idea, having said no to several previous film offers that had come their way, but they were in a good place in their lives and felt they had enough distance. They also felt it was the right time and that waiting any longer might be too late to revisit their father’s story in this way. So once that had happened, then we were approached as directors. And from our point of view, my point of view specifically, I’d grown up with Christopher Reeve’s story. I’d grown up with Superman. I remember going to see the original Superman film on the biggest screen in London at the Odeon Leicester Square on a Sunday afternoon with my parents when I was about 13 or something, and loving it. And then just following the story of this unknown actor who overnight became the biggest icon for my generation.
And following his story, obviously learning about his accident and then how he responded to the accident and knowing something of his advocacy and his determination that he would somehow find a cure. That was all part of a kind of mythology that I had growing up, really. And then for Ian and me together as a directing duo, we had just made a film called Rising Phoenix for Netflix that was about the Paralympic games. And obviously we’d engaged with the stories of a number of disabled athletes with different kinds of disabilities, but we’d learned a lot. We sort of entered that world a little bit and become very passionate about it and about telling stories through that lens.
While we were making that film, we saw footage of Christopher emceeing the Paralympics in Atlanta in 1996. It was barely a year after his accident, and the eloquence with which he spoke to the athletes as they entered the stadium, the beauty of his words, just stuck in our heads. All of which is to say that when we were approached, it was a no-brainer. It’s a story that we felt we were the right people to tell and we were also desperate to tell it.
WW: When you started this project, what was your impression of Christopher Reeve and how did it evolve?
PE: There’s the fact that he played a superhero on screen and then almost became a hero in his own life. That’s a very beguiling starting point, but it rapidly became very clear to us that we were doing so much more than just telling his story. We were telling the story of these two women who fell in love with him, Gae Exton during the Superman years and, later in his life, Dana Reeve, who he married. And then we were telling the story of these three wonderful children who we got to know extremely well and are very proud to call our friends. Now we’ve worked with them, traveled with them, interviewed them. They’ve been staunch, steadfast allies through the whole making of this film without ever trying to seek to somehow influence the film that we were making. And then obviously meeting Christopher’s friends, many of whom are very well known, which gives you another window into the man.
I remember his doctor, Steven Kirshbaum, saying to us he’d always been so struck by the fact that, for example, Barbara Walters kept coming back to interview him, and the third time she came back, he said, “But why this fascination with this man in particular?” And she said, “Because he’s one of the good guys.” That’s something that we found again and again and again. I mean, he was someone who was refreshingly honest about himself and his shortcomings. He definitely had flaws and vulnerabilities that we found out as we explored, as we researched the story and did the interviews. But he was someone who lived by this maxim that he had printed out on his desk, which was a quote from Abraham Lincoln. It was, “When I do good, I feel good, and when I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.”
I think those words are something that Christopher lived by every single day, particularly in the period after his accident. I don’t want to build him up as a sort of Messianic figure — that would be the last thing that he or we wanted to do in the film — but we found so many examples of that, of those sort of small acts of goodness. When we finished the film and it was announced that it was going to premiere at Sundance, someone saw something about it in the press and reached out to us, and he was a gentleman from Yorkshire in England.
About five years after Christopher’s accident, he had suffered his own accident that had left him paralyzed. He was in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, which is one of the major centers for spinal injury in the UK, and he was astonished that one day during his rehabilitation he received a letter that had been dictated by Christopher. And it simply said, “I’ve learned about your accident and I just want to tell you that you are not alone. Do not give up hope. You can still achieve your dreams and know that there are many of us in the US and across the world who are working every day unceasingly to try and find new cures, new treatments, better quality of life.” The fact that he just reached out to this person who’d never met him, who had never had any contact with Christopher Reeve, just received this letter randomly … I mean, I think that speaks so much to the kind of person that Chris was.
WW: Was he like this before the accident, or is it something that evolved in the aftermath?
PE: The seeds have to already been there, don’t they? And I think that it’s important that Christopher, as much as he resented Superman taking over his life and found himself defined by the character, he also realized that he could use that and harness it in all kinds of ways. A pivotal moment came in 1987 when he was approached by the Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman, who asked if he would help a group of actors in Chile who were basically being threatened with execution by Pinochet and the dictator’s thugs, because they’d spoken out against the regime. And so Christopher went to Chile for 48 hours. He spoke up on behalf of the actors at a rally. It was reported on all the press that Superman has come to fight.
And in that very small period of time that he was there, he had enormous impact, both on the politics of Chile and himself. It was at that point where he realized, “I can actually have a positive effect in the world.” And as a result of that, he set up the creative coalition with Susan Sarandon and the Baldwin brothers —Alec and Billy — and a number of other people to kind of coax actors to use their voices to speak up for important social and political issues. So that was going on in Christopher’s life.
I also think he’d probably gone through a period where he was the “star” with a big ego and all of that. He’d gone through that and he’d sort of slightly been humbled in his acting career that in a way he never had the success that he had with Superman in other roles, as good an actor as he was. And as cleverly as he chose a diverse range of roles, he never quite clicked with audiences outside the cape, which is something that we very much focus on in the film. So, there was a humility and there was a kind of fire burning in him before the accident, and that went to a different level of seriousness of purpose after the accident, when he realized just how much work needed to be done on behalf of people living with disabilities. So, yes, that’s the man he was.
WW: In telling this story, how difficult is it to balance Christopher Reeve with the whole Superman element?
PE: There’s one very easy thing, which is that you are dealing with tragic irony that this accident should happen to the man who had the superpowers and the superhero reputation. And that suddenly a superpower is the ability to lift a finger or take a single breath by yourself without the help of a machine. And that tragic irony is stitched into the way that we tell the story. It has to be there. It’s one of the first things I remember thinking when I first heard about his accident. It’s not a clever thing to say in that that’s naturally what everyone feels when they hear this story of the tragic fall, as it were, when he fell from his horse.
We always knew that we wanted to have the main story be the story of Christopher waking out of his coma after the accident, then kind of getting to a point where he thinks maybe the best thing would be to switch off the life support and then finding a reason to live and finding a purpose to live for. That’s a wonderful story to tell. And then counterpointing that with the past, we kind of weave the story of him becoming Superman and being Superman and dealing with being typecast, being trapped in the role of Superman. We thread that through the narrative where the main story is what happens after the accident.
WW: Christopher Reeve’s Superman is still the one all others are measured by. What is it about him in that role that has allowed it to endure the way that it has for almost 50 years?
PE: He was the first actor to portray a superhero on the big screen. We found some footage of [producer] Kevin Feige talking about whenever he starts working on a new Marvel film, the first thing he does is show the original Superman film for everyone. The combination of Chris and director Dick Donner yielded a kind of authenticity, even if some of the effects are a little bit dated, that yielded an authenticity and a playfulness that really defined a whole new genre of cinema. It’s a bit like Sean Connery’s James Bond. The first is always going to be the one that everyone else is measured by. Moreover, the fact that what happened to Christopher in his life, although tragic, the way that he put it to such heroic use, I think that really took the way that people associated him with the part to a different level and is very inspiring.
Facts about Christopher Reeve
- Although he had been acting on the stage and had a small film role prior to playing Superman in Warner Bros Superman: The Movie, that part turned Christopher Reeve into a movie star.
- Robin Williams was an extremely close friend of Reeve, and in fact, was the first person to make him laugh following his accident.
- His portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman remains one of the most popular in the character’s history.
- In 1996, Reeve hosted the 1996 Summer Paralympic Games and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
- The Christopher Reeve Foundation (later renamed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation) is devoted to raising awareness and funds for stem cell research and spinal cord injury research.
- The documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2024.
- Christopher Reeve died on October 10, 2004 at the age of 52.
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