Darth Vader Actor David Prowse Tried To Land The Lead Role in Richard Donner's SUPERMAN

David Prowse is best known for his time playing Darth Vader in George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy, but before that, he was a well-known six-foot-seven bodybuilder. Prowse was kind of a beast!

Well, during his time playing Darth Vader, in 1978, Prowse made a big effort to try and land the role of Clark Kent / Superman in Richard Donner’s classic Superman movie. The part ultimately went to Christopher Reeve, who was absolutely perfect for the role, but in another universe, Prowse could’ve ended up in the role.

During a past interview with Rock Cellar Magazine, Prowse was asked about his attempt to land Superman, and he said:

“Yeah, I tried very hard to get the Superman role, which obviously went to Christopher Reeve.  I kept on talking to various people, asking about the opportunity to play the role of Superman in this upcoming movie I’d heard about.  I’d ask them, ‘What’s the problem?’ and they’d say, ‘Well, you’re not American are you?’ I’d say, ‘What difference does that make?’ Then they’d say, ‘Oh no, you can’t have anything but an American as Superman!’”

That’s obviously changed! But, back in the day, Hollywood believed that Superman had to be played by an American. When asked if his English accent had anything to do with not getting the role, he said:

“No, it had nothing to do with the accent.  What it is, was, they’d said that Superman is such a major part of American comic folklore history, and the American public – who are going to account for 90% of the revenue for the movie – just would not accept anything but an American Superman. So that was the end of that, so I gave up trying.”

However, Prowse did end up training Christopher Reeve to prepare him physically for the role. Prowse was the guy who helped pump him up. Prowse talked about that, saying:

“Yes, even though I wanted the role for myself (laughs). What happened was one day I got a call from Dick Donner, the director, and he said, ‘Dave, we’ve got this guy called Christopher Reeve who is going to play Superman,’ and I said, ‘Great – what’s he like?’  He said, ‘Oh, he’s about 6 foot 5 and about 160 lbs’, and I said, ‘What do you mean? It sounds like he’s really skinny.’  So they asked for my help and said, ‘We’re going to have to build him up.’ I wanted to meet Christopher first before I committed to training him, so I sat down with him and found him to be very, very nice.  I spent six weeks with him before he went into the Superman suit, and I got 40 pounds on him in six weeks!  And he looked quite good by the time he went into the suit.”

So, while Prowse didn’t end up playing Superman, he did play a very important role in getting Reeve ready to step into the suit. In the end, I’m not sure Prowse would have worked for the role of Superman, he didn’t have the Superman look. What do you think?