Actor Jerry O’Connell Reveals the Surprising ‘Crown Jewel’ of His Acting Career

[stargazer01]

‘Stand By Me’ Star Jerry O’Connell Reveals the Surprising ‘Crown Jewel’ of His Acting Career

It's a great little article about his work and Superman. Love his honestly and the way he sees the character. I think he has been a solid Clark Kent/Superman.


https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/s...-popular-role/


“I was in Jerry Maguire, Stand by Me and Scream 2, and do you know what I’ve gotten my highest rating from Rotten Tomatoes for?” he asks rhetorically. “The Death of Superman. It’s my crown jewel.”

What he’s referring to is the 2018 animated film which had him voicing the Man of Steel in one of the character’s most popular storylines from the comics. He continued as the character in the animated films Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015), Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016), Justice League Dark (2017), Reign of the Supermen (2019), Batman: Hush (2019) and the just-released Justice League Dark: Apokalips War.

As he puts it, being a part of these films has given him the most “street cred” and, Jerry emphasizes, “It’s an honor to be a part of something so important to so many people. My psychiatrist tells me not to do this, but I read pretty much all the tweets and comments and you do get compared to not only everyone who has portrayed Superman, but pretty much anyone who’s acted or voiced any superheroes. When it really strikes me is when I walk the floor at Comic-Con and everyone’s throwing out high-fives and no one gives me any side-eye. It’s kind of funny, but typically on social media people say pretty nasty things about me, except when it comes to voicing Superman. The worst I get is that he’s ‘pretty good.’ There’s none of that, ‘I can’t stand this guy, get him out of here.’"

Beyond superhero fandom, he’s amusingly found a real-life perk that caught him by surprise. “A couple of months ago, I went to the DMV to get a Real ID,” he says, “and there was a huge line. I had already been there for about an hour and I figured I had another one or two hours ahead of me. I’m just sort of goofing around on my phone and somebody comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, are you waiting for a Real ID?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he tells me to come with him. I’d filled out all my stuff and said to him, ‘My number hasn’t been called yet,’ and he was, like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I paid the fee and thanked the guy and he said, ‘Hey, man, I love you as Superman!’ He actually recognized me as a voice actor and as the voice of Superman. How mind-blowing is that?”

While Superman die-hards might argue that the “real” Man of Steel might not accept such a perk (then again, would he really need an enhanced driver’s license?), Jerry certainly believes that the character remains relevant in the 21st century. “Not to get too hokey,” he reflects, “but we’re in a pretty tumultuous, fragile time right now in society. I think Superman really just represents the ideal of safety, security and being a guardian.”

The way things look, Justice League Dark: Apokalips War — which deals with Superman, the Justice League, supernatural heroes like John Constantine (voiced by Matt Ryan) and others fighting to literally save the world from the powerful Darkseid (voiced by Tony Todd) — is ending a story arc that’s been gradually unfolding over the course of these films. As such, it could very likely represent Jerry’s final turn as the Man of Steel. If so, for him, it’s been an interesting journey.

“I was in my 30s when I started and now I’m in my 40s,” muses Jerry, “so there’s just a little more gravitas. There has been a little bit of a learning curve for me personally, after I watched the final films, trying to find, as an actor, subtle differences I can put into Clark Kent and Superman. Because you are playing two different characters and there has to be a differentiation where it can’t be too overt or too subtle. So it’s really helped me as an actor, because playing Superman is like playing a four-dimensional character. He’s a superhero, he’s a frightened boyfriend, he’s a dedicated son, he’s an orphan and he’s the last survivor from his home planet. There’s a bunch of characters there — not to get too Inside the Actor’s Studio — and a lot to play with.”

Justice League Dark: Apokalips War is available now for digital download and on 4K/Blu-ray and DVD May 19.

[DochaDocha]

Interesting article, but the "Crown Jewel" comment looks like it was one made in jest since he mentions that's according to Rotten Tomatoes. Headline writers...

Glad to see he probably values the role, and not just as a paycheck. I thought he was better than Tim Daly.

EDIT: For the time being, Death of Superman has been supplanted by Apokolips War, which is currently at 100%.

[Vordan]

I loved his Superman, definitely going to miss him in the role. He really grew into it by the end. I think having his wife play Lois really helped too as well.

[Frontier]

I loved his Superman, definitely going to miss him in the role. He really grew into it by the end. I think having his wife play Lois really helped too as well.

The funny thing is he was also Captain Marvel in the DCAU (and Showcase short) and was the second voice of this Superman after Alan Tudyk. Things work out in interesting ways .

[SuperCrab]

A quick word search shows it isn't mentioned in the article (Unless they allude to it without mentioning the title of the show), but one of my favorite television shows of all-time is Sliders, which Jerry O'Connell starred in the first 4 seasons of (It ran for 5 seasons).

It was a live action show from the 90s about a small group of people who travel from parallel earth to parallel earth (A premise anyone who's read comics like Crisis on Infinite Earths and such shouldn't find too confusing. ). The setup was that they had a malfunctioning sliding device with a timer that gave them a random amount of time on each earth before they had to slide to the next one or be stranded where they are. They couldn't find their way home, and kept hoping they'd just wind up back there by chance eventually. For the most part, they are sliding blind and don't know what to expect from each earth they slide to.

The first two seasons were tremendous. The last three seasons were of highly variable quality- they lost the original show runner and later some of the original cast, and had a lot of new directives from the networks they were on (First FOX and then what we now know as SyFy) about what the show should be, as well as a budget that went way up in season 3 and then way down in season 4 and 5.

I think the first three seasons are available on Hulu (At least they were the last time I had it). Eventually, it'll probably be on the Peacock streaming service because the show is owned by Universal and the Peacock thing is owned by Comcast/NBC/Universal/Whatever else they've merged with. I'm not sure why the final two seasons are missing, but they're on DVD (Along with the rest of the series).

I've often wondered why this show hasn't been rebooted for one of the streaming services. It seems perfect for something like Netflix. The idea of alternate earths is actually much more mainstream now than it use to be.

There's a first season episode called "Fever" that was the first thing I thought of when the epidemic got bad in real life. A lot of the parallel universes they visited were almost prophetic in terms of some of what happened in the real world after the show went off the air, even though they were all set in the same years the show aired and weren't supposed to be the future.

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

That first guy who voiced Superman in JL:War was really miscast. Couldn’t have found a douchier sounding Superman. Recasting with this guy made a huge difference, Looking forward to American Alien but I’m gonna miss this new 52 Superman. Glad he got a big role in Apokolips War.

[Ascended]

Sliders was a great show. I really loved it back in the day.

I feel like there's a bunch of quality sci-fi from that general era that gets ignored; Sliders, Space: Above & Beyond, Farscape......

At least some few people still remember Farscape and Sliders, but I don't know if I've met anyone who remembers Space: Above & Beyond at all.

[Timothy Hunter]

Not Kangaroo Jack?

[Matt Parker]

I'm glad Jerry is proud of his time with Superman because it was well deserved. He was an excellent Superman and an excellent Clark. His performance in Death of Superman was awesome and he gave the character so much heart. For me, he's a close third for best Superman VA after Tim Daly and George Newbern. I hope he returns some day.

[stargazer01]

I also really like his wife, Rebecca Romijn's, voice work as Lois. I think she's still gorgeous. Can't wait to see more of her work in Star Trek. I liked this lil interview.