Ever since Outlander first hit the small screen in 2014 and became an instant fan favorite, leading man Sam Heughan has regularly been touted as one of the favorites to inherit the mantle of James Bond, something the actor is definitely open to now that there’s a vacancy in the wake of No Time to Die drawing the Daniel Craig era to a close.
However, the 41 year-old revealed in an interview with Variety that he auditioned to play another cinematic icon way back at the very beginning of his career, when Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns was actively seeking to cast an unknown as the Big Blue Boy Scout.
At the time, Heughan was only in his early 20s with a solitary feature film credit and a handful of TV appearances under his belt, and while he was reflecting on the state of superhero cinema during his appearance on the Just for Variety podcast, the longtime Jamie Fraser explained how his first Hollywood experience changed his outlook.
“I’m excited about the new Batman movie. I think that looks fantastic. I think the other superhero movies kind of lost their way a bit. They’ve become, I think, a little too obese in a way, but anything character-based — I mean, Batman’s a great one because he’s not a superhero. He’s just an interesting character. Something with a good backstory. I grew up a pescatarian or sort of vegetarian-pescatarian.
I didn’t start eating meat until I came to America when I was 24. It was all these delicious burgers and food…At the time I was auditioning for Superman. I had a trainer and he was like, ‘You need to get bigger. You need to be able to fill out the cape.’ He was like, ‘Eat more protein.’ I remember the first time I had chicken or something and just suddenly, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have all this energy. And I don’t feel hungry all the time.’”
Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill have since gone on to squeeze themselves into Superman’s spandex, with a pair of new projects focusing on the Kryptonian in development, so that particular opportunity may have passed Heughan by. James Bond is an entirely different proposition, though, with the next recasting process set to commence this year.