How did you score the role of Superman?

I auditioned for it. It was a six- or seven-month process. I got my original meeting through a TV audition for a pilot... I impressed the producer, who was a producing partner with McG, who was directing the film at the time, and I got the meeting with him, tested with him, and then Bryan [Singer, director] saw some of that footage, and then I met with him.

What were the highs and lows of playing the Man of Steel?

Some awesome things have happened since people saw the film, the effect that it's had on people just the spirit of having Superman around is amazing, and people smile, and anything you can do to put a smile on somebody's face is great.

Lame thing? One of the harder things was wearing a harness. But that's part of the way to get the flying to look so real and so that we could use more real shots than CGI. So I guess a lame thing is that we can't do everything for real.

I hear you're a gamer?

Not playing too much right now. I don't know that I have a favorite system -- I love all three of them. I loved the Sega Genesis back in the day -- that was probably the favorite of all the systems. Played God of War recently -- my girlfriend and I like that quite a bit. It's a cool game. Sports games like Madden are great. Burnout -- games that we can play together, watch each other play.

I'm better at competing against a computer than another person. I don't have a need to destroy somebody. Soul Caliber -- also a great game. [I've been a] fan of that since the arcade version.

What's your personal history with Superman? Did you have the sheets, the lunch boxes -- the underwear?

I had quite a few different versions of the pajamas. When I was about three months, there's a photo of my mom holding me in a Superman onesie. Then, when I was five or six, I had another suit, because that was the first time I saw the movie on television and was very excited to see the film. I remember thinking I need to see [Superman III and IV]; I saw them later in my teens, and then faded away until this started happening. Then, when I moved to California, people started to remark that I looked like Christopher Reeve.

So you've played the new Superman game?

It's a pretty cool game. What's great about it is that you can see the whole city of Metropolis at one time. It's a great map that shows you the complete structure of the island and you can fly anywhere at anytime. It's very interactive -- you can interact with cars and lamp posts, and the people have some funny things that they say -- all the NPCs have some great dialogue. It's pretty fun to hear my voice saying things.

Do you think it looks like you?

Oh, it looks a lot like me. It's really great. He's definitely more comic-book styled, he's much bigger than I think a human being could really be, but he looks fantastic. Flies fantastic, the supersonic speed -- breaking the sound barrier is a really cool effect.

Could you tell me a little bit of the difference between working on the video game and working on the movie?

Well it was much easier working on the video game. My input was just my voice, and that tended to be a little bigger of a performance, because you're not seeing anyone's mouth move. The lines have to be overly dramatic -- bigger than I would say them on screen. So that was kind of fun to actually get big and say some more Superman lines that I don't have in the film. Like 'beating up bad guys' and taking on the evil minions.