One of the little running press currents in the lead-up to next week’s release of James Gunn’s Superman has been the fact that both David Corwenswet (Superman) and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor) auditioned for the title part,

Nicholas Hoult’s journey to becoming the iconic Lex Luthor in the upcoming Superman movie was far from the norm. Specifically, because the respected actor was initially auditioning to play the lead role in the highly anticipated film.

One of the first Lex Luthors that Nicholas Hoult remembers seeing as a kid is the one played by Michael Rosenbaum on Smallville, the CW series featuring Tom Welling as Clark Kent/Kal-El in a high-school coming-of-age setting.