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December 3, 2013: Harry Lennix on Superman/Batman Announcement and Involvement

Having played General Swanwick in "Man of Steel", Harry Lennix was tasked with the job of making the announcement at San Diego Comic Con earlier this year regarding the upcoming Superman/Batman movie by reading a quote from Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns". Collider.com has published an interview with Harry Lennix in which they ask him about that experience...

You weren't at Comic-Con for The Blacklist, but you were there this last year because of your involvement with the Superman franchise. What was it like to make the announcement about the Superman/Batman movie?

LENNIX: First of all, when I went there, Tom Cruise was on a panel. I saw Tom Cruise walk off the stage, and I'm a huge Tom Cruise fan, from the time he started. And then, Zack [Snyder] introduced me and the people understood what was coming. It was all in real time, and the audience was playing catch-up to the mysterious weight of this reading. Just to be a part of that and to really be going on auto-pilot was just surreal. It was like an out-of-body experience. I couldn't see anybody out there, just because of the nature of the configuration, but I could feel them. It's like having sonar. You could feel this wave of energy coming up, the lights black out, and then I went off stage. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. When's the next time I'm ever going to be able to say that Batman and Superman are going to be in the same movie. That's crazy! And then, I got to meet Tom Cruise after I made that announcement, and what a gentleman. He's such a gracious man.

While you were giving that announcement at Comic-Con, did you ever think, "Okay, are you going to put me in the movie"?

LENNIX: Well, to be honest, whether or not I'm in the next movie, it was fun to do that. I would have done it, even if they'd said, "We'll never see you again." I'd have still been thrilled just to be a part of it, as I was with the first film. When I heard that they were going to be doing Man of Steel, I thought to myself, "Man, that would be great! I would play a street sweeper in that." And then, to have actually been a part of that whole process, not in the writing of it, obviously, but through the casting and the reading of the script, was a great honor. I have some confidence that I'm gonna be in the next installment.

You can read the complete interview at Collider.com.