'Superman & Lois' star Michael Cudlitz on (finally) debuting classic Lex Luthor look (original) (raw)

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Superman & Lois, season 4, episode 8, "Sharp Dressed Man."

Lex Luthor has officially suited up — in more ways than one — on Superman & Lois as the series soars closer to the end.

Monday's episode of the CW series finally saw Michael Cudlitz's rough-around-the-edges iteration of the iconic DC Comics villain shed his grizzled image for one much closer to the source material. At the top of the hour of "Sharp Dressed Man," Lex Luthor became exactly that — shaving his beard and donning a tailored three-piece suit — to project a clean-cut image as part of his plan to use lies and subterfuge to turn the public against Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) and Superman (Tyler Hoechlin).

The biggest assist in Lex's plan came care of Godfrey, played by Arrowverse alum Tom Cavanagh as his mysterious final season role was finally revealed. Based on the DC Comics supervillain of the same name, this version of Godfrey is a popular TV host who cares more about making good entertainment than the pursuit of the truth — basically the anti-Lois. Godfrey hosted Lex on The Godfrey! Show for a solo interview where Lex challenged Lois to face off with him in a live debate, to which she accepted.

Unfortunately, Lex's lies and Lois' lack of evidence against Lex meant that his plan was a success. It also didn't help that, at that exact moment, his "brainiac" (get it?) henchman Milton Fine (Nikolai Witschl) was able to hack into and steal John Henry (Wolé Parks) and Natalie's (Tayler Buck) supersuits, causing Superman to crash through Lex's windows on live TV to fight the rogue war machine. By the end of the episode, Lex celebrated his win by kissing his second-in-command Amanda McCoy (Yvonne Chapman). With only two episodes left, things have never looked more dire for the Kent family.

Below, Superman & Lois star Cudlitz talks stepping behind the camera to direct this episode as well as (finally) getting to debut a more comic-accurate version of Lex.

Michael Cudlitz, 'Superman & Lois'.

Colin Bentley/The CW

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This is such a Lex-heavy episode, and you directed it as well. What was it like juggling all of that at the same time?

MICHAEL CUDLITZ: [_Laughs_] The inside of my head was a loud place at that time. Yeah, it was exciting and terrifying and wonderful and immensely creatively fulfilling.

You previously directed episodes of The Walking Dead, so did you know when you were cast as Lex that you’d also get to direct on this show?

One of the first conversations I had with [showrunner] Todd [Helbing] when we were figuring out if it was going to work with me playing Lex was he brought up that I had directed over at Walking Dead. He asked me if I had any interest of doing that over here. I said, "Of course. I kind of thought this conversation might come up later, but of course." He mentioned it first and pursued it, and I was more than happy to jump on it.

Again, I wasn't even hired yet as an actor, so I didn't want to presume that they would be open to me directing. A lot of these shows, especially by the time you get to the third year, as they were in, you have shorter seasons, you have established directors that work really well with the show that the cast loves. So to expect you're going to have an opportunity to do that is kind of silly, so to be having that brought to me by them was very exciting.

And at the time, the show was not canceled. "Oh my gosh, if this works out, this is a show that I can direct on for a number of years." Because I had watched the show, had already fallen in love with the show, so I was a fan of the show and knew the show was great, knew it was doing well at the network. In my mind I was like, "This is a no-brainer. This show's going to go for many, many years." It was all very exciting very early on.

What was your reaction when you learned this was the episode you were going to direct, which features more Lex than we've gotten all season?

It's kind of hilarious. I wasn't supposed to be in the episode when we initially talked about what I was going to direct. I said, "I would love if we can have the episode that I direct be a little bit later in the season, just so I can really get my footing. I'm still really sorting out who Lex is." And they were all in agreement and said, "Absolutely, we were thinking that we're probably not going to have you be in the episode you're directing. It'll just be a lot easier for you, time-wise." I said, "Oh, awesome."

We get into actually shooting the season and I get a call from Todd, and he's like, "We're laying out the rest of the season and we think you're going to be in episode 8, but we're going to really try to work it so you're not in too much." There's nothing I can say but, "Okay, sure. Sounds great." And then I get the script. I call Todd and I go, [_laughs_] "I'm kind of in this quite a bit." And he tries to play it off. At this point, he's just giving me a hard time. He's like, "No, no. You're just in the interview stuff."

I said, "Todd, that's like four days of shooting." He's like, "Well yeah, but it's on the one set." I go, "Okay, I see where this is headed." He told me afterwards, "I knew, but I had all the confidence in the world in you. I didn't want you to feel overwhelmed and have it sneak up on you, so I just really wanted to be supportive, because I knew you were going to be fine. But yeah, it's a huge episode for Lex."

[_Laughs_] It's kind of weird because a tremendous amount happens in the episode, but there's no huge event that happens. There's a bunch of events that happen. It's the old, "How do you eat a dinosaur?" story: One bite at a time. And that's how we approached the episode. We just started chunking away at it.

Yvonne Chapman, Michael Cudlitz, 'Superman & Lois'.

Colin Bentley/The CW

What was it like debuting the iconic Lex Luthor look in this episode, with the shaved head, no beard, and tailored suit?

It was awesome. I felt like we'd come full circle, finishing up the season with, like you just said, this iconic, traditional, current-day Lex look. The way I shot the beginning, the cold opening, I really wanted to have it be just a complete reveal for the audience... It's an incredible reveal visually, because everybody's been wanting this Lex and asking, where is it? And even the people who early on were not happy about the beard, they've come around, most of them. There's some people who will not care for this version of Lex. That's fine. There's very, very divided camps when it comes to Superman and the characters.

I've joked about this before. It's an incredibly large fanbase because of the amount of time that this property has spanned, the generations this property spans, you have your traditionalists and people who love certain comics and certain worlds or certain universes. Or in the live action, they love Smallville, they love the Snyderverse or the Arrowverse. There's these camps within, but they all have the same thing in common: They love Superman. So there are going to be people who just do not care for what we are doing or, more specifically, what I'm doing with Lex. And I'm 100 percent fine with that. We're telling our story the best way that we can and we feel very strongly about what we are telling.

But to be able to come back to this iconic look and have that sort of wonderful reveal... how I approached it is just like a kid who would want to see this thing for the first time. I think we pay wonderful homage to the comic book itself because in my vision for the cold opening, it's really just a bunch of comic panels, basically. And it's told in a very comic book way where we pan up and we don't see him, and then he turns and you see, and we push in and we reveal. It was really exciting and creatively satisfying for me.

We need to talk about Lex and Amanda's kiss. What was it like filming that scene, and do you think that Lex is capable of feeling true feelings for someone?

I don't know. We're going to see. The kiss itself was really interesting. That scene where the camera pulls through the wreckage in the window and back to the balcony, that was one of the first scenes that came together in my head as to how I wanted to shoot it. And then I quickly threw it out, the idea of how I wanted to shoot it, because I knew we didn't have enough money to do what I wanted to do. And then in the end, it turned out we actually were able to.

But what I didn't realize — and I didn't really think about it, so we got to it literally in the moment — was that's an intimate scene between two adults, and two actors. And I had never directed something like that before with myself. Yvonne Chapman is fantastic, and she was very present and very giving and trusting in that scene. And that's the only way that that could have happened. It's very intimate stuff. There's a lot of consent issues. And you want to make something creatively wonderful, but you also want to be respectful to everybody involved.

But it's a weird situation when you are directing it and in it at the same time, because in your mind you think, "I have an idea. This is what I'm going to do." But then you realize you haven't talked about it with the other person, so then you have to wait on that idea until the next take, until you can discuss it. Whereas if it's not an intimate scene and you're directing and you're acting in the scene, you can change something on the fly because it really only involves you. It is very sensitive storytelling, very sensitive content, and it needs to be handled that way. And I was very, very lucky to have an amazing crew around me.

What was it like working with Tom Cavanagh as Lex and Godfrey sway public opinion against Lois?

Tom Cavanagh. What a hack. [_Laughs_] He was wonderful. He had directed on the show many times. He's been on all of the Arrowverse shows as multiple characters, and he's good friends with our showrunners after working on The Flash. He was incredible. He knew the cast. He knew the crew. He was very respectful of my vision. He's literally what you want in an actor. You want him to come completely prepared. You want him to have point of view and a plan, but be willing to toss out that plan at a moment's notice. And he did all of those things. I could not have asked for a more positive experience.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Superman & Lois airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.