Pro-Palestine Comedian Bassem Youssef Insinuates He Lost A ‘Superman: Legacy’ Role Over Comments Concerning Israel And Gaza
JB Augustine
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An actor-comedian who claimed he had a role in Superman: Legacy only to lose it at a very politically heated time had to clarify his account of things, and his interactions with the film’s writer/director James Gunn.
Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian comic often compared to Jon Stewart, said in an interview with Salon that he was offered a role in Gunn’s DCU reboot that was put on ice and later written out of the script entirely late last year.
The timing was suspect to him as the final update about the part coincided with Israel’s bombardment of Gaza following the October 7th terror attack at an outdoor concert and an appearance Youssef made on Piers Morgan.
In the interview with Morgan, Youssef was very candid about his extended family in Palestine and very critical of Ben Shapiro. In both the Piers Morgan appearance and the Salon conversation, he applied satire to the politics behind the conflict but claimed he wasn’t being comedic.
“I didn’t do comedy. I’ve just repeated their talking points to them. They said, ‘How many Palestinians should we kill?’ I was like, ‘Kill more.’ Because this is what they do. This is what happens,” Youssef said.
“‘We’re just going to go to the north of Gaza.’ ‘Now, we’re going to do Khan Younis.’ ‘Ah, it’s just in Rafah.’ ‘We are not going to bomb any hospitals.’ Every hospital is bombed. ‘We’re not going to bomb any schools.’ Every school is bombed. ‘We’re not going to bomb any university.’ Every university is gone,” he continued.
“The thing is, they are wasting time by asking useless questions like, ‘What is the proportional response?’ ‘What can they do?’ While they’re stalling to give them time to do the killing. It was the worst exposed cover-up in history because we see what they’re doing, and they’re playing them, and then they come and they lecture us about liberalism and democracies and equality,” he added.
Youssef was then asked about the part he was up for in Superman: Legacy, one he was “a little bit bitter about losing,” and he seemed to imply that the answers he gave Piers Morgan about Gaza and Israel are why he lost it.
“Because of that, I was cast in the movie, ‘Superman,’ and then they told me, ‘We changed the script,’ after this Piers Morgan interview. I want to assume good faith. I want to know, I want to believe that this is true. I was a little bit bitter, and I wanted to go, I was like, ‘Oh, screw DC, screw Warner Bros,” Youssef recalled.
He then said he understands “the emotional burden that those people have” and “the connection they have with Israel.” Said Youssef, “For them, Israel is not a place, it’s not just a country, it is an emotional connection because those people and their ancestors went through generational trauma that I understand.”
The comedian posited, “And I understand maybe the people who are in charge, that took the decision, looked at me and didn’t want to have me.” If it was his decision as an Arab Muslim studio executive, he thought, “I wouldn’t like a pro-Zionist or a pro-Israel to be in my movie if he attacked my people.”
Youssef stressed his problem is with Israeli policy and not Jewish people. “This is the thing that we need to dissect: when I attack Israel, I attack its policy, I’m not attacking Jewish people. I want to tell those people, ‘I’m not a danger to you,'” he said.
Similar comments reflecting these views were shared in multiple interviews in a short period, and after they went viral, Youssef took to X to “set the record straight.” In a video post, he blamed the Internet for twisting things and blowing them out of proportion.
Losing the role in Legacy, he says, was an “honest oversight” and he has nothing but love for James Gunn.
“I have a great [Zoom] call with James. He tells me he likes to interview actors to make sure that everybody has good chemistry on set,” Youssef recalled. “Everybody in the business knows that this is a great day. You do an audition, in one hour you get the call. It’s an amazing thing. Me and my agents celebrate; the universe is smiling for us.”
But that luck turned. “And then months go by. On October 7, I go on Piers Morgan’s show [and] I do two interviews,” the actor added. “And then after the interview, right after the strike ends, we get a call from the studio who said, ‘Bassem is no longer with us because the script has been changed.’”
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Youssef talked with Gunn in a call in which he shared his perspective of how this script change looked in light of world events and Gunn understood his position, according to the actor.
“It was just mishandled and the timing was bad,” Youssef clarified. “But as I said in the interview, I don’t want to believe there was no ill intention, and I think it was an honest oversight. And I hope it’s true and I hope there was nothing else but that.”
He added, “I haven’t thought about it and I don’t like to complain or victimize myself. I am actually very grateful for the life that I have, to travel and to earn my living by making people laugh.”
Warner Bros. did not comment when Salon reached out on this matter, but several sources including Gunn in his own words say Youssef was never officially part of the movie. He merely had an offer for the part of dictator Rumaan Harjavti who in comics rules the nation of Bialya.
NEXT: Rumor: ‘Superman: Legacy’ Features Middle East Conflict, Introduces “Pseudo Justice League Team”
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