Superman actress Rachel Brosnahan recently called out actors who take on roles in superhero movies but criticize them later on. The upcoming DC Universe movie, directed by James Gunn, marks Brosnahan’s foray into the superhero genre. In the film, she plays Lois Lane, a reporter for the Daily Planet and Clark Kent’s love interest.
Rachel Brosnahan calls out actors bashing their own superhero movies
Rachel Brosnahan recently sat down with actress Amanda Seyfried for an Interview Magazine feature and shared her experience working on Superman.
During their conversation, Seyfried pointed out how well Brosnahan got along with her Superman co-star David Corenswet, suggesting their shared backgrounds and passion for working in such movies. In response, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel actress criticized actors who agree to be a part of superhero films only to throw criticism towards them later on.
“I don’t know why people say yes only to then turn around and complain about it,” Brosnahan said. “Look, I don’t want to s— on other actors, but there was a minute where it was cool to not like superhero movies and to look back on projects like this and pooh-pooh them,” she added.
The Courier actress then stated that artists are free to choose whether or not to take on superhero films. However, she noted that they must “stand by” their choices.
While Brosnahan did not mention anyone by name in her criticism, her comments seem to aim at a broader industry conversation, as some actors who have featured in superhero movies in recent years have later expressed their disappointment from such films when they did not get the desired result, or the movies failed to impress the audiences.
In 2024, Dakota Johnson featured in Sony’s Madame Web, which became a critical and commercial failure. Recently, she seemingly distanced herself from the film’s reception, saying she wasn’t to blame for its failure. “Unfortunately, with Madame Web, it started out as something and turned into something else. And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point,” Johnson told the Los Angeles Times.
Prior to that, in a Bustle interview last year, she called working on the film “an experience,” but also stated, “I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world.”
Furthermore, Christian Bale, who famously played Batman in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, criticized his experience with Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder, in which he played Gorr the God Butcher. Bale used the word “monotony” when describing his experience working on the film in a 2022 GQ interview, seemingly referring to the movie’s green screen set.