A 1983 interview with Christopher Reeve

By Brian McKernan

On March 15, 1983, while on the staff of Omni magazine (a consumer-oriented science and technology monthly that ceased publication several years ago), I interviewed Christopher Reeve regarding the then-upcoming film Superman III. I used portions of this telephone interview in an article I wrote for Omni’s August issue, but the entire text of the Q&A has never been published–until now. I share this transcript with CapedWonder™.com readers because I believe they might enjoy reading Reeve’s candid comments about his role as Superman and his opinions on a few other topics we veered into during our conversation. Most important I hope this interview will provide insights into an intelligent and professional actor who made a lasting contribution to the Superman legacy by taking the part seriously and giving careful thought to the character he portrayed.

Before reading this interview, please bear in mind certain facts. Although he was at times candid, this was the first and only time I ever spoke to him. Also, I have done minimal “cleaning up” of the everyday colloquialisms spoken during this conversation. As with anyone, Reeve occasionally rephrased his thoughts midway through his sentences. I have retained these features of the interview to accurately preserve the nature of this conversation with a unique individual.

Most important, this interview–and the article derived from it–is not an endorsement of the movie Superman III. I had not seen Superman III at the time I did the interview and wrote the article (and, as he states, neither had Reeve). The film was still being prepared as of March 1983 and would not be screened for the press or public until late June. The little I did know about the movie was based on early plot outlines published in film magazines. Whether or not Superman III was a good or bad film is a separate issue from this interview and the article derived from it. My purpose in creating them was to obtain and convey Reeve’s opinions on playing Superman, his experience of working on the film, and his comments on topics of interest to readers of a science magazine in 1983 (such as whether he owned a computer, which was not a common thing at the time).

This interview is © Copyright 2006 by Brian McKernan and is not to be reproduced or excerpted without written permission.

I started the interview by explaining that I wanted to discuss his work on the upcoming Superman III.

Reeve: I don’t know how much I can tell you because I haven’t seen the film. I’ll do as much as I can within that framework if you have a deadline. It would be better–I’ll be seeing the film probably in early April. Can you wait till then, or do you want to talk about things now?

McKernan: If I could talk now I’d appreciate it, because my deadline’s April first.

Reeve: All right, okay.

McKernan: And the people at Warner Bros. have been very helpful but they’re hampered by different things, too.

Reeve: Uh-huh.

McKernan: And they can’t tell me much about the plot or anything.

Reeve: Yeah, I have the same problem, but let me see how far we can take you.

McKernan: Okay, let me get right to it and not take up any more of your time than I have to. I know that there’s computers in the film and our readership is interested in computers. In what sort of way are computers portrayed in the film?

Reeve: Ultimately, computers can be a destructive force that prevent people from relating to one another. Computers are misused in Superman III by certain bad elements led by Robert Vaughn who are trying to take over the world. They are abetted by the [Richard] Pryor character, who finally has a change of heart and eventually realizes that a high-tech, evil-minded scheme he’s been led into is evil. Whether to stay with it or not is the moral choice he has to make, which way he’s going to go.

McKernan: So, in other words, like any tool, the tool can be used or abused?

Reeve: Yeah. What happens with this film is whereas the other Superman films have started big and worked down. In other words, they’ve started in outer space, other planets, larger-than-life forces, the evil people who can fly, things like this. This film takes place right here in 1983, in this country with real, contemporary people who have a larger-than-life hero, Superman, in their midst. But we have no–no one else has super powers in this movie.

This movie literally starts on a matchbook cover and moves up into the world of technology. What happens if technology runs rampant. And Richard Pryor, literally, the opening shot in the movie is a guy is out of work in New York or wherever, and he picks up a matchbook cover that reads: “EARN BIG MONEY, BE A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER,” you know those things?–to light a cigarette–

McKernan: Yeah.

Reeve: –and it starts from there and works all the way up to a computer trying to take over the world. So you see the movie starting small and then opening up to the size of an epic-size movie.

McKernan: Do you own–I don’t know if this is related–do you own a personal computer? [READER: PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THIS QUESTION WAS BEING ASKED IN 1983.]

Reeve: No. I have one of those calculators that I use. Generally I use it in the airplane to figure out ETA [expected time of arrival] of my next checkpoint or something, but other than that I don’t use computers at all. And I hate video games.

McKernan: Yeah.

Reeve: Oh, I despise video games. I just think–when I look at people’s faces, you know, sort of blue with the reflected light of some Atari game or something it makes me sad. I’m sure it’s fun for a while but it becomes a narcotic in a way.

McKernan: Yeah, they’re like zombies or something.

Reeve: Yeah.

McKernan: Moving on, let’s see, next question. Each film has shown us new aspects, new layers of the Clark/Superman personality. Will we see further aspects, new layers in Superman III?

Reeve: One of the changes you’ll notice is that I back down a little bit on the physical comedy in Clark. He doesn’t bump into walls quite so often. I feel that the audience will get bored with that by now. Also, Clark goes back to Smallville for his high-school reunion, and he makes a new friend. He meets this girl–played by Annette O’Toole–that he used to know when he was a kid, named Lana Lang. And she is now divorced and has a nine-year-old kid and is trying to make a living. Sort of a single mother now. Clark and Lana renew their friendship. In other words, she likes him and there’s a kind of attraction, but it’s not going to go any place. It’s just friends, really.

And what happens is that–at the end of part two [Superman II] the romantic gesture at the end of part two where Superman causes Lois Lane to forget that they had the relationship, to forget that she knew him, that’s the end of romance for Superman. The purity of it, I think, is important. That was his one true love and it didn’t work out, and there won’t be another. This idea that he sort of hops from bedroom to bedroom, you know, in contemporary fashion I think is wrong.

So it’s a friendship with Lana Lang in spite of however the studio or anyone else tries to pump it up into something else. And it’s more important because it works. You know, when men and women aren’t trying to impress each other something very close can develop. He sort of helps her without putting any pressure on and it’s a very relaxed, friendly kind of thing. But she would not want to spend time with a nerd. If Clark is a real goofball, this classy, attractive girl would not want to spend time with him.

So I have made him, when he gets back to Kansas–and if you remember in the first movie when he grew up he was a perfectly normal farm kid with no behavioral problems at all. He didn’t stutter and push his glasses around and stuff. But that was all a disguise he invented for living in the city. So when he goes back to Kansas we see him really drop all that and he sort of goes through a moment when he realizes “Why do I do all this shtick?”

So that’s sort of new. You will see a far more normal Clark Kent without a lot of the mannerisms that go with it. So that’s the new element in the character.

McKernan: You’re not the first actor to portray Superman. In my opinion you’re the best, but you’re not the first, and you probably won’t be the last–I think of Bud Collyer, Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, Bob Holiday–but as the current “keeper of the flame,” so to speak, do you have any thoughts like why Superman–who was created 50 years ago this June–is still so popular? Probably more popular now than he ever has been?

Reeve: Because he’s such an accurate psychological model. And all the other heroes are basically derivative. They are some replica of Superman. You’re combining basic fantasy with everyday reality, and it’s an unbeatable combination. What person has not dreamt of flying and freedom and power and all those things, yet had to face the 9 to 5 work world that we all really live in?

Siegel and Shuster really made that–also with the use of the vivid colors, with the red, and the blue, and the yellow, very sort of harmonious colors symbolizing the things. It’s a strong visual mass-media representation of something that goes on in every citizen of Western culture, really. That sort of dilemma of “How do I function as an individual in a society where I feel like a mouse?”

In the 1930’s–1933 particularly in the Depression–Siegel and Shuster said it first and best, I think. And all the other characters I think basically are some version of Superman. That’s why. He was the first and the truest.

McKernan: I think that people sometimes wish there really was a Superman to get us out of, like somebody with an atom bomb in New York City. Somebody to really–

Reeve: I don’t entertain those thoughts because I believe you shouldn’t mix fantasy with the real world. It’s a mistake. Superman should be left up on the screen or on the page or in people’s minds. You shouldn’t even bring him out into the daylight, so to speak. It just isn’t fair.

McKernan: You’ve done such a terrific characterization of Superman, making him modern and believable. What was it like to suddenly have to play his antithesis? You know, the anti-Superman. The complete opposite of what he is?

Reeve: With that we’re trying to not talk about. We’re sort of leaving that for people to discover in the film.

McKernan: Okay.

Reeve: If someone has spilled it to you, they shouldn’t have.

McKernan: Nobody did. I sort of deduced that this was the case. But that’s a no-no, huh?

Reeve: It would be really nice, since your magazine is, you know, you could say it was a scoop, but it would really help us and the audience if you don’t get into that.

McKernan: Okay. We wouldn’t scoop the movie anyway because this issue’s coming out at the same time the movie’s released.

Reeve: Uh huh.

McKernan: I’m enough of a fan not to blow it.

Reeve: I think, yeah, there’s a nice surprise coming for people. And let’s leave it at that. If you want to do some follow-up material after the movie’s out and then talk about it when it’s become current and everyone knows the secret, then we can talk about it.

McKernan: We interviewed Terrence Stamp two years ago and he said that flying was sheer agony. But you always make it look so effortless and pleasant. Is it really that painful and everything?

Reeve: No, I don’t think so. You have to prepare for it, but it’s very easy. I mean, sometimes on location in Canada after I’d finish a shot we just take people, we’d take extras and put them up on the wires and whip ’em around, fly ’em around. If you were to put the flying equipment in an amusement park–the stuff that I use–and put it at Knott’s Berry Farm or Magic Mountain–whatever these places are–people would queue up to go do it.

McKernan: Do you use one or two, several wires?

Reeve: Well, there’s four or five different techniques. I guess we’re not supposed to get into that. But it involves everything from wires to front projection to traveling matte, to blue screen, all that stuff.

McKernan: Richard Pryor on a recent Johnny Carson Show, told about you both being airborne and him being very scared because I guess it was one of his first times, and you’re saying, “Hey, don’t worry, I’ve got you.” And he thought this was funny because he said “What was I worrying about? I was with Superman?” Was that pretty much how it happened, with that anecdote?

Reeve: Not only as Superman, but also as the actor, I know how to do that stuff. I was simply telling him [Pryor] that I had the stunt under control, that the wires were safe, that I’ve practiced it, that there’s no problem, and I was sort of controlling what we were doing, and I was telling him “Don’t worry, I’ve worked it out, and we’re fine.” But nothing, if there was a massive power failure and the crane were to break or the gears to slip, I’d go down like anybody else. I was not talking to him as Superman.

McKernan: I realize that. I’m not–that sounds like a cheap shot, that’s not what I’m trying to say. I thought it was a funny anecdote that I could incorporate.

Reeve: Basically what they did was they scared him. They were afraid that he wouldn’t want to do it. I rehearsed with him in the studio for a couple of days, taking him off the floor slowly, first three feet, then five feet, and then ten, and saying that this is what we do, and then we rotate, and then you get your feet ready, and then you land, and then you take it in your knees. Taking him through it.

But they got him on the set at eight in the morning and suddenly he was outside on a crane instead of the ceiling and they whipped him up to 60 feet without any preparation. They put the harness on, the wires, and suddenly he was up dangling in the air with a lot of people watching outdoors. And a crane looks very flimsy. These construction cranes look scary, they don’t look solid.

It was just not a kind thing to do. They should have eased him into it. But since the scene called for him to be terrified anyway, the unit knew that he was perfectly safe and they decided to get that real fear. Dick Lester is big on that. No one was in danger at any time, but they could have been more courteous to Richard, I think.

McKernan: How was he on the set? I understand he’s very spontaneous. I was reading a Marc McClure interview. I know that Lester uses multiple cameras. Did you do a lot of things like one take for spontaneity?

Reeve: Many things were one take but also Richard can be really fishing for two or three takes and then suddenly get it, whereas I tend to figure it out in rehearsal and then repeat it and refine it. You know, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do in the rehearsal and then I’ll try to make it better each time but not really changing it. So I’m trying to get more in the groove. But Richard doesn’t do that. He will–he’s like a flat stone skipping over the water. It’ll bounce four times before it goes in. And he’s very interesting that way. That stone skipping is fun to watch, you know, and how many times it’s going to bounce. That’s actually a pretty good image for it. But you’d better be ready when he hits, is the point.

So as long as you stay alive and stay in tune, then when he gets the one take where it’s all working, then both people meet. The danger is that you’ll be off when he’s on, ’cause he’ll have done it two or three times, get tired of it, and then just suddenly find it. But it’s like opening a box of Whitman Samplers. There’s 48 flavors of candy in there and the problem is you like all the candy; it’s hard to choose. So it’s an excess of richness rather than of being too little.

McKernan: How was the combination of Pryor and Lester, Lester having done comedy too. Did it make for some pretty funny times?

Reeve: I remember them being polite and cordial, but no more than that. Richard Pryor came on to work and then go home. He would do his things, there would be a lot of laughs on the set but–no–it was not a nonstop party. It was professional, it was economical. Richard would come out, do the scene, and go away. There was not a lingering family feeling because that’s not really what’s encouraged there. We’re moving so fast that when the shot’s over everyone’s mind is on the next thing. So, as opposed to [Superman: The Movie director] Dick Donner, who kind of luxuriate in each thing and then gradually let it go and then go on to the next thing, Lester’s not that way. So Pryor picked up that style. I think he was probably more economical on this film than on any of the other thing’s he’s done. He got to the point quickly and many things were the first take, eventually.

McKernan: You’ve always taken Superman seriously. A lot of appropriate humor, but I’m curious with Pryor, is Superman III more of a comedy than the previous films? I know it can stand on its own, is it more of a comedy?

Reeve: It’s closer to [Superman] II than to I in style. More of a comic book, and I think that’s right. We mustn’t pump this up into being pseudomythology. It’s really a comic book and within that we play it straight, but it’s just that: It’s two hours where you check your problems at the door. But we don’t address the real world. I think that’s cruel to say this is America in a literal way. What we do is in a more affectionate–I don’t know.

The style with Lester is not just to spoof any values or anything, but to show absurdities in the world. And rather than–I mean the difference between that and, say, the box of Cheerios on the breakfast table and the unlimited horizon of wheat fields and all that scene-painting that Dick Donner did in part one. Part three has much more the sort of Lester style to it.

McKernan: According to that Mark McClure interview I was talking about, he says you are the leader on the set, and if you don’t want to do something it’s not done. Were there any changes you made on this film?

Reeve: Oh sure, quite a lot, but that makes me sound out to be a bit of a dictator. This is all in a friendly way. No more [changes] than you would do working off-Broadway. I think that Superman is a character that I know. If I didn’t know it I’ve been wasting six years. Often they will defer to my judgment because I know what I’m doing in this part and it just simply happens naturally.

They’ll set something up and I’ll say “I think he’d fly left to right, or he’d go low-level here, or he’d go up,” whatever. I had much to do with the flying this time. I sort of oversaw a great deal of how the flying was to be done. Whereas in the first two films I kind of went for the ride. And I feel that the flying is…I don’t know, I’m very proud of it this time. I think it’s probably the most technically accomplished of the three films.

McKernan: They got the bugs worked out of the Zoptic system?

Reeve: No, we fired the Zoptic people. They were a drag. Zoptics does not work. It’s trying to make flying in the camera instead of with the person. Dick Lester agreed with me wholeheartedly, is that you put the camera down and the people do their thing. That’s the basics of comedy. If you go back to Keaton and Chaplin and all those guys, the camera is still and the people are running around. And this should extend to special effects as well. You can’t do the tricks in the camera with human beings; they must be allowed as much freedom as possible.

So we have shots in this movie where I actually fly over real city traffic about four feet above the deck. Long, long flying shots over wheat fields that are all real outdoor stuff. There’s a higher level–it’s more ambitious and yet I feel the flying has gotten to the point where it’s so good you don’t even notice it, which is the ultimate compliment. People will sit there and take it for granted: “Oh yeah, he flies, of course.”

It’s a throwaway, if you know what I mean. We’re not putting brackets around it.

McKernan: Undue emphasis on it.

Reeve: We’re not calling attention to it, where the whole ad campaign for part one was “You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly!”

McKernan: I always thought that was a big mistake.

Reeve: Big mistake.

McKernan: We already know he can fly.

Reeve: Yeah.

McKernan:> Don’t call attention to it.

Reeve: What we were trying to do in part one is say, “Look guys, this is not a joke, this is a real movie.” But we know that now. But however the technical accomplishment of the flying is something which I’m proud of on this film. I have not seen it, but I think it’s going to be pretty good.

McKernan: Getting back just a second here, I see I’ve got another note about the whole computer thing. I sort of see–or tell me if I’m reading too much into this–sort of an antitechnological bias in a lot of movies–

Reeve: Umm-hmm

McKernan: –and I think of Luthor’s use of technology and rockets in the first film, his black box in the second film, and the molecule chamber that almost does Superman in, but of course saves him too, is there sort of an antitechnological bias now with the ultimate computer [in Superman III]?

Reeve: There certainly is from Dick Lester’s point of view, and he in fact got this idea from a discussion that I had with him about another script, totally non-related. It had to do with computers siphoning off when they round decimals on paychecks to the nearest number. There’s a great mnay fractions of money, fractions of cents, that get stored away someplace, and the man who could tap on into that would have a windfall. That’s one of the premises of the movie is that as we move into the future and toward high-tech we must try not to move away from people. And that’s Lester’s bias and my bias and it very definitely works into the story. The computer ends up being the thing that steals your humanity, that keeps us from relating to each other.

McKernan: In other words, we have to make sure that we run the computer and not vice-versa.

Reeve: Yeah. And to see that getting a machine to do all our work for us is not necessarily a good idea.

McKernan: Could Superman become cynical with all the Lex Luthors and Ross Websters trying to do him in?

Reeve: I don’t know. See, that gets too close to making him a real person. I don’t know, you simply don’t have a film without a villain of some kind. So I’ve taken so much for granted I’ve never asked myself that question.

McKernan: I’m really getting into it here.

Reeve: That’s fine, but you see I don’t–when I play him, on the set and doing the work, then I really try to step inside and it’s like Superman–like any real hero–doesn’t judge people that much. He does what he needs to be done in his view but he doesn’t ever lecture or at least he tries not to lecture. He doesn’t tell people you shouldn’t live this way, you’re bad, you’re wrong. See, I’ve tried to get away from that sort of moralizing, self-righteous side of Superman. He simply calls the shots as he sees them and helps where he’s needed while trying to keep a low profile. But then when I leave it I never, and sit down and–I mean, Christ, the questions that people have come up with about the symbolism of it are really quite frightening. Religious figures who call up and ask if I’m aware of the responsibilities of being a contemporary Christ figure and things like that. And hey Jack, I’m an actor from New Jersey. I can’t be responsible for that.

So what it comes down to, you’re asking a question that I’ve never addressed. You see what I mean?

McKernan: Yes.

Reeve: Okay.

McKernan: How do you think Superman III will do against the other big summer movies, Jedi and the two James Bonds?

Reeve: I don’t know, that’s all marketing stuff. I just make the films and try to make a work that everyone’s proud of. What happens to it at the box office or reviews or something I don’t know because I’m, you know, you can’t carry the weight around. You have to do it and then let yourself go, do you know what I mean?

McKernan: Yeah.

Reeve: It’s like sailing a boat and constantly looking at the wake. You have to look at the waves ahead of you. You’ve got to look at the clouds and the wind in front of you, and not where you’ve just been.

McKernan: Did you need any special training for the role this time around?

Reeve: No, just review. Just I fell right back into it without any problems. The first week I felt awkward, I felt slight resistance to training again, particularly since the other work that I’ve done in the last couple of years has always required a thin body–Deathtrap, Monsignor, Fifth of July. I’ve been down to 185-190 and to go back to 220 was not a lot of fun. But I’ve done it.

McKernan: What’s next on the horizon for Christopher Reeve?

Reeve: I think my next project at the moment I’m planning to do a film with Carl Reiner called Lost in August, which is a comedy about people in analysis in New York and what happens when all the shrinks go on vacation at the same time. As they do, they all go out of town in August and come back Labor Day. And having created a dependency in these people and then leave them stranded. That’s probably on for May/June, that area. And then I’m thinking about doing a film called The Aviator, which I’ll probably do in Yugoslavia in August/September.

McKernan: This is another wacky question, but I’ll get right to it, Do you ever think it’s strange coincidence that the actor who played Superman on television–George Reeves–had a name that was so similar to yours?

Reeve: You see, I don’t have that name. He’s Reeves, I’m Reeve, and it’s a big difference. It’s like the difference between Johnson and Johnston.

McKernan: Yeah, I know, I realize that. And I always cringe every time, like for the Special Olympics Premiere last year with Eunis Kennedy Shriver when she put the extra “S” in there.

Reeve: “And now a word from Chris Reeves,” yeah.

McKernan: I gritted my teeth, like “No!”

Reeve: I always tell people that I took the “S” off Reeves and put it on my chest.

McKernan: You’re resigned yourself very good-naturedly to a really stupid question.

Reeve: You know, there’s certain things you just cannot–I don’t know, to use a sort of a California hot-tub phrase, you can’t let yourself be the effect of all those things. That’s “external noise,” you know what I mean?

McKernan: Yeah.

Reeve: And if I were to be that way that would mean that every time something stupid happened in a gossip column I’d get upset. For some reason they were convinced, the gossip people were convinced that Gaye and I were having another child. And they had her pregnant for a good 19 months before they figured out that there was no baby. And never had been planned or anything. Our son Matthew is three. But I used to be the effect of all that stuff, go take the rides up and down with these sort of changes in fortune or perception. That is all external noise. You just let it go. So, that’s what I do with all that.

McKernan: Yeah, I’ve been collecting interviews–

Reeve: You know where there’s a good one–

McKernan: There’s a good one in Cosmopolitan.

Reeve: Yeah, that’s one of the best.

McKernan: I thought that was really good. [The article referred to here is titled “Christopher Reeve: A Surprising, Super Man,” and was published in the March 1983 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.]

Reeve: Finally, this lady Joan Barthel, who’s a very accomplished novelist, actually, she came along because they had sent another girl who was just so…and stuff that I just really jumped on her. And in fact she writes about it in this article, says about this girl and I reduced her to tears. But this lady had been asking me about my childhood, and I was talking about it, she said, “Oh well that’s not interesting, I want the funny anecdotes.”

I said “Look lady, if I tell you my life, and I tell you meaningful things that I think the audience will relate to, and you tell me that’s not funny enough I want you to get right out of this room.”

But then Joan Barthel came along, and the basic thing is she just let me be. And as a result she let me sort of reveal. You learn more about who I am by just letting me talk for two days and the trip to the mountains and stuff, than if you have a slant on the story.

I know you guys are coming from a science-fiction angle, and a tech angle, and a future angle, which is all fine, but you’re not digging in for personal stuff. But Jesus, when these people get going and they’ve got some assignment from their editor that they’ve gotta come up with this angle on Superman it inevitably leads to a crutch. In terms of that, if they could all be like that [Joan Barthel’s Cosmopolitan article] that would be wonderful. This lady was great. So that is, I stand by every word in that article.

McKernan: That was really good. I have another one here from a recent Sunday newspaper supplement magazine–

Reeve: That’s a bad one.

McKernan: She was horrible.

Reeve: She just didn’t like me because I wasn’t pushing her buttons.

McKernan: Yeah.

Reeve: She really wanted to be stroked, too.

McKernan: She should walk the plank at your next cruise.

Reeve: Yeah, well I keep a list. She won’t be invited back on the next cruise.

McKernan: Is there anything you’d want to say to our readers? You know, we’re a sort of a science-fiction/tech type bunch. Do you enjoy science fiction at all?

Reeve: I hate to tell you this, but I’m not a science-fiction buff.

McKernan: That’s okay, I’m not either.

Reeve: I tend to read biographies mostly. Or things that I need to know to learn things, like books on navigation or stuff like that. No, nothing more than “Hello, I hope they enjoy the film.”

McKernan: I’ll let you go, I really appreciate you taking the time, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

Reeve: You’re welcome. I hope this third one makes it because there’s some very good stuff in there and you know I would tell you more but I haven’t seen it so I want to see how it’s come out.

McKernan: Here’s the last inevitable question–Do you think you’ll do a number four?

Reeve: No, I guarantee you I won’t. Because I don’t want these films to become like a series, where they become formula stuff. And I think each of the three films has its own life, stands on its own two feet, and each has interesting new material. But you should quit while you’re ahead, you know? And it has nothing to do with my life or casting or any of that kind of stuff. It’s just simply I–money can’t buy satisfaction and I’ve gotta do stuff that I’m happy with. They’ve gone on to Supergirl and we’ve had long talks and about “How much money would it take to get you to do Superman IV?” and I said “Don’t bother, you know? Don’t bother.” It just isn’t–you’ve got to move in your life and you’re not, you know, we all had a good time in senior year in high school, but you can’t stay there. So, not that I’m equating Superman with the senior year in high school, but the idea that you mustn’t get stuck on any one thing in your life.

McKernan: Okay, thanks very much, Chris.

Reeve: Right, so long.

Please click here to see a PDF file of the original printed interview.