The role Superman’s parents play in his life has always differed across years of comic book reshuffling and myriad adaptations. But in our latest crack at the Kryptonian whip in James Gunn’s Superman, Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van play a brief, but fundamental role in the movie. Casting the role for Gunn was crucial, not just because of the character’s legacy—but because he wanted to buck a trend from other live-action Superman films.
In Superman Jor-El and Lara are played by the voice of Rocket Raccoon himself, Bradley Cooper, and Westworld‘s Angela Sarafyan, respectively—appearing briefly in a recorded message sent with Kal-El when he was evacuated from Krypton. The message is short, but key to the core of the film, and when casting Cooper in particular, Gunn wanted to convey the same kind of legacy prior live-action incarnations of the character had.
“Well, Bradley’s a friend of mine, and I needed somebody who could play Jor-El,” Gunn told Deadline of the casting decision. “And I don’t think this is a spoiler, everybody knows about this, [but I wanted someone] who had the stature of what we imagine that character being, somebody who could walk in the footsteps of Marlon Brando.”
But while that similar gravitas was key for the Jor-El of 2025, one thing wasn’t for Gunn: the older age that has been traditionally given to the character in adaptation.
“A lot of times, Jor-El is played by a 70-year-old man and that means he was 70 when he had a baby, so I wanted somebody that wasn’t too old,” Gunn explained. “Everyone was bringing up all these actors that were too old for me. I think Bradley was perfect. He did it for me as a favor because he’s my friend, and I really appreciated him doing it.”
Cooper, a spry 50 by human and Kryptonian standards, isn’t actually that much younger than several of the actors to play the character in live-action, however. Russell Crowe was 49 when he played Jor-El in 2013’s Man of Steel, and although Terrence Stamp voiced the character in Smallville, he was physically portrayed in the show’s 9th and 10th seasons by Julian Sands, who was in his early 50s at the time of production.
Superman is now in theaters.
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