Henry Cavill is one of the few stars who seemingly doesn’t have any enmity with anyone in Hollywood. However, that’s not really true. There is one actor he isn’t too fond of and that’s James Franco. This rivalry was revealed when Franco was writing a review of Man of Steel. The actor revealed that he and the former Superman star locked horns on a small project they both starred in.
Henry Cavill And James Franco’s Rivalry
In 2013, James Franco wrote a review of Man of Steel for Vice. In the article, he stated that even though he went to see the film, he didn’t meet Henry Cavill, who once upon a time was his co-star in a 2006 film called Tristan and Isolde. Franco says that he avoided meeting Cavill because he felt that the former The Witcher actor didn’t like him.
As per Franco:
“Years ago we worked on a film together called Tristan and Isolde. I played Tristan and he played my backstabbing sidekick. My hunch is that he didn’t like me very much. I don’t know this for certain, but I know that I wouldn’t have liked myself back then because I was a difficult young actor who took himself too seriously.”
However, Franco says that he wouldn’t consider them enemies at all. However, they haven’t starred in any other film apart from Tristan and Isolde which grossed only about $28 million in total and didn’t make a dent at the box office.
James Franco Addresses Henry Cavill’s Superman Passion
In the same review for Vice, James Franco talked about Henry Cavill’s love for the character of Superman and how badly he wanted to play the character. The Spider-Man actor mentioned that all that Cavill wanted was to be the last son of Krypton. As per Franco:
“What Henry took seriously back then was Superman. He wanted to be Superman more than anything in the world. Personally, I’m not sure why… But Henry was dying to do the Bryan Singer version of Superman that was being put together as we were shooting Tristan in Ireland and the Czech Republic in 2005. Henry was in the running but, in the end, he was passed over for Brandon Routh.”
In the end, Franco was happy for Cavill because, at the Man of Steel premiere, he realized that his Tristan and Isolde co-star’s lifelong dream was coming true. Franco wrote:
“The night of the premiere I saw Henry from afar on the red carpet and knew this was the moment his whole life had been building toward. His dream had come true, and I was happy for him. It was the role he would have killed to do.”
Cavill’s last appearance as Superman was in the post-credits scene of Black Adam. As fate would have it, he isn’t DC’s Superman anymore and someone else will play the superhero when James Gunn reboots the character in his DCU film, Superman: Legacy.
Superman: Legacy will be released in theaters on 11 July 2025.
Source: Vice
