Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for SupermanJames Gunn has brought back several veteran actors for the first DCU movie, Superman, with whom he has collaborated before. This is pretty par for the course for the prolific superhero movie director, whose movies and shows are often filled with familiar faces. It is a habit he shares with many other directors, like Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino.

Thankfully, James Gunn’s favored collaborators are a talented group. Their continued involvement in Gunn’s projects also signifies a positive working relationship, which undoubtedly contributes to the overall quality of James Gunn’s projects. With all of its positive reviews, Superman is no exception.

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Sean Gunn Plays Maxwell Lord

Gunn’s Eleventh Gunn Role

Despite the DCU being in its infancy, Sean Gunn has already portrayed three characters in the cinematic franchise. This is thanks to his dual role in Creature Commandos, where he voices GI Robot and Weasel. He additionally portrayed a live-action Weasel in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Sean Gunn boasts more roles than most in James Gunn’s cinematic back catalog, which is possibly thanks to the two being brothers. Nevertheless, Gunn has repeatedly proved his talents. He appears as Maxwell Lord in a brief scene towards the end of Superman, where he is seen in a news report declaring that Lex Luthor “sucks.”

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Alan Tudyk Plays Robot #4

Tudyk’s Sixth Gunn Role

Alan Tudyk is a prominent voice actor known for portraying K-2S0 in Rogue One and Andor and Sonny in i-Robot. He hasn’t starred in many James Gunn projects, with James Gunn’s PG Porn (as Bob) being their only collaboration before Tudyk entered the DCU. Tudyk voices multiple characters in Creature Commandos, though it is unclear if he’ll reprise any of these roles in live-action.

He also lends his voice to the most prominent Superman Robot in Superman, namely, Robot #4, who is later dubbed Gary. Gary boasts the most speaking lines of all the Superman robots and returns to his duties after Lex Luthor’s assault on the Fortress of Solitude, meaning Tudyk could reprise the role in a Superman sequel.

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Michael Rooker Plays Robot #1

Rooker’s Ninth Gunn Role

Michael Rooker is one of James Gunn’s most frequent collaborators. His roles in James Gunn projects are habitually short-lived, with his most recent three superhero project roles, Yondu, Savant, and Sam, all meeting violent ends in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, The Suicide Squad, and Creature Commandos.

Rooker has continued this trend in Superman, where he is one of many voices for the Superman Robots. Rooker voices Robot #1 and presumably meets his end at the hands (or, more accurately, buzz saws) of Engineer as she raids Superman’s Fortress of Solitude with Lex Luthor. Gunn may yet have a more significant future DCU role in mind for Rooker.

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Pom Klementieff Plays Robot #5

Klementieff’s Third Gunn Role

Pom Klementieff made a splash as Mantis in the MCU, working with James Gunn specifically on the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise after debuting in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2​​​​​​. Since then, Klementieff’s biggest role has been in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

Klementieff lends her voice to another Superman Robot, namely Robot #4, who is one of the four robots that attend to the titular hero in the opening scene of Superman. Given Klementieff’s popularity since starring in the MCU, it is likely that she will receive a larger role in a future DCU installment, though no role has yet been confirmed.

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Bradley Cooper Plays Jor-El

Cooper’s Second Gunn Role

Bradley Cooper does not star in as many James Gunn movies as many other actors in Superman, with his role as Rocket Raccoon in the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise being the only one. Nevertheless, Rocket Raccoon played such a central role in the MCU that he would have worked closely with Gunn throughout that time.

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Although it is much smaller, Bradley Cooper plays a similarly pivotal role in Superman. He debuts as Superman’s biological father, Jor-El, in a recorded message that instructs Superman to take over Earth. Given Bradley Cooper’s star power, it is possible that he will reprise his role as Jor-El in a future DCU installment.

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Stephen Blackehart Plays Sydney Happersen

Blackehart’s Eleventh Role

Stephen Blackehart worked with James Gunn in his earliest movie, Tromeo and Juliet, for which the renowned director wrote the screenplay. Blackehart starred in various minor roles in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and as the minor character Briscoe in The Suicide Squad, though these movies are among the biggest he has starred in.

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Blackehart’s role is more significant in Superman, where he portrays a frantic scientist working for Lex Luthor, Sydney Happersen. Happersen is the mustachioed team member who expresses doubts about Lex Luthor’s destructive plans, panicking over the rift tearing the world asunder. Given Happersen survived the ordeal, it is possible he could reprise this role in a Superman sequel.

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Mikaela Hoover Plays Cat Grant

Hoover’s Eighth Gunn Role

Mikaela Hoover worked with James Gunn soon into her Hollywood career, landing the titular role in 2008’s Sparky & Mikaela​​​​​. Her biggest role in James Gunn’s superhero movies is arguably Floor, Rocket Raccoon’s rabbit friend, in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, who met a gruesome end in one of the most tear-jerking moments in the entire MCU.

In the DCU, Mikaela Hoover portrays Daily Planet journalist, Cat Grant, who joins Lois Lane and other colleagues in Mister Terrific’s flying ship as they escape the rift opening up Metropolis. Cat Grant has been adapted into live-action five times, and is the gossip columnist at the Daily Planet in DC Comics.

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Terence Rosemore Plays Otis Berg

Rosemore’s Fifth Gunn Role

Terence Rosemore began his professional relationship with James Gunn with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 where he portrayed the Ravager Narblik, who rebelled against Yondu and met his end as a result. He then portrayed a minor character, Knowhere resident Xlomo Smeth, in subsequent Guardians of the Galaxy installments before portraying a Crew Chief in The Suicide Squad.

Rosemore’s Superman role is more major as he portrays another Lex Luthor employee, Otis Berg. This name is a callback to 1978’s Superman, in which Lex Luthor’s assistant, Otis, names a portion of Lex Luthor’s prospective West Coast landmass “Otisburg” before being chastised into removing it.

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Nathan Fillion Plays Guy Gardner

Nathan Fillion is one of James Gunn’s most prominent collaborators, having begun their working relationship on James Gunn’s PG Porn before starring in more prominent roles in Slither and Super. Gunn went on to cameo as different characters in each Guardians of the Galaxy movie and as the obscure character, The Detachable Kid, in The Suicide Squad​​​​​​.

Nathan Fillion arguably plays his most significant role in a superhero movie yet in Superman as Guy Gardner, a particularly arrogant and abrasive Green Lantern. Fillion will reprise the role in Peacemaker season 2 and Lanterns, with Fillion asserting that his role in the latter is the most foul-mouthed of his career.

Superman

9/10

Release Date

July 11, 2025

Runtime

130 Minutes

Producers

Lars P. Winther, Peter Safran