Margot Kidder appeared as Lois Lane in a handful of Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. She was undoubtedly one of the greatest versions of Lois Lane. Also, Kidder starrer Superman movies have been immensely popular.
The director of the 1978 Superman movie, Richard Donner instantly liked Kidder after seeing her television performances. And he was quite right to cast her as the iconic Daily Planet reporter, she went on to become one of the beloved versions of Lois Lane.
Richard Donner on Casting Margot Kidder in Superman
Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman was a huge critical and commercial success. The movie grossed over $300 million at the box office thanks to the wonderful cast and appealing storytelling of the director.
While casting for the character Loise Lane, Margot Kidder has been the primary preference of the director as she has seen her brilliance in several television appearances. “I’d seen Margot Kidder in a TV series called Nichols. She was charming and very funny,” Donner once told The Hollywood Reporter.
“When I met her in the casting office, she tripped coming in and I just fell in love with her. It was perfect, this clumsy [behavior]. She was one of the few [actresses] we flew to London to test with Chris. Anne Archer [also tested]. But they were magic together.”
The director went on recalling a funny incident on set, “When we were shooting, her makeup man comes to me and says: “We have a little problem. Margot scratched her eye putting her contacts in.” I said, “Do it without your contacts,” Donner said. Further explaining the behind the scene incident, he said, “That day she was wonderful, because she was wide-eyed, with no depth perception. She walked into a desk — and she was the girl I wanted her to be. She said, “But I can’t see!”
“There was a law after that: Every morning people had to come to me and make sure she didn’t have her contacts in, and that she would act without her contacts. It just made her wonderful.”
It was a bit of a gamble on his part to let Kidder act without her contacts but he was happy with the results.
Margot Kidder’s Critical Take on Amy Adams’ Lois Lane and Later Superman Movies
Kidder’s portrayal of the Daily Planet reporter was iconic, however, the late actor was critical of the characterization of Amy Adams’ version of Lois Lane in the Zack Snyder narratives. She said that Adams’ Lois Lane never enjoyed her deserved space.
“They took one of the best American actresses’ around, Amy Adams, and didn’t give her anything to do! I mean, how stupid is that? They made her what used to be the girlfriend, which kind of ended in the 60s with women’s rights,” Kidder said.
Further, the actor also believed that her co-star, Christopher Reeve’s Superman was much better than the later movies. Talking to HeyUGuys, Kidder said that Reeve’s Superman exceeds the rest because the comic book’s accuracy is kept intact in the film. “No, they always go back because that film was better written and directed. They go back to them because they were so much truer to the comic books,” she said adding the fact that targeting a particular demographic also hampered the essence of the later Superman films.
“Probably, my guess is what happened is when they decided to hit the demographic of the millennials in the later films. I think the directors were good, the actors were good but the basic approach wasn’t there.”
The beloved Superman actor, Kidder whose career spanned five decades died on 13 May 2018.
Source: Showbiz CheatSheet.
