Bryan Cranston is a fan favorite when armchair casting Lex Luthor. After all, he played a nefarious baldy on Breaking Bad for a brief period. However, Cranston will probably never be cast as Lex no matter how good an actor he is, which surprisingly turns out to be the least of the disappointments fans with this fantasy will face.
Cranston has acknowledged the dream casting and not favorably. The Godzilla star is not impressed in the slightest with the idea he could play Luthor because he looks good bald. He considered it lazy when the topic was addressed during a recent appearance on the podcast Happy Sad Confused and, although he answered a leading question, maybe the actor has a point.
The interviewer Josh Horowitz approached the question headlong by inquiring, “Was it all just the laziness of fan casting that they either saw the great mustache or the bald head back in the Heisenberg days that you were always fancasted as Lex Luthor or Jim Gordon? Was there ever any real conversations about playing those live-action characters?”
Bryan Cranston says those Lex Luthor and James Gordon rumors over the years were just that. @92ndStreetY
Watch the full #happysadconfused here! https://t.co/YWMv1fARwN pic.twitter.com/srIitrDZcl
— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) June 25, 2023
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Cranston answered, “Not that I know of. I did Jim Gordon in the animated Batman thing. And that was fun. I think it was — I think you’re right, I think it was, like, lazy casting. There should be a, like, ‘lazycasting.com.’ And I was like ‘what is it?’ Because I had a bald head, they go ‘Ah! Lex Luthor!’”
He continued, “It’s like, come on. Let’s think about this a little bit.” James Gunn, director of the next big Superman movie in production, Superman: Legacy, will probably think harder about his casting for Lex and look past Cranston for someone younger. The oldest actor he might go for is Bradley Cooper according to a report, unless Chukwudi Iwuji gets the part.
Both men are in their late 40s but probably have enough in the tank to devote themselves to an eight-year plan that would entail sporadic appearances in the DCU. They both could end up being part of that world and keeping the schedule regardless of who they portray. As for Bryan Cranston, he can always voice Lex – or some other role – for animation.