The Untold Truth Of Amy Adams' Lois Lane
Released in 2013, "Man of Steel" was meant to recharge the "Superman" franchise and subvert audience expectations for what this superhero could be like. The film's interpretation of Lois Lane, played by Amy Adams, was a big part of this approach given how active she is in the plot, even when aliens start attacking Metropolis. Having an actor of Amy Adams' stature play Lois also embedded a newfound level of importance to the character. After making her Daily Planet debut in 2013, Adams would go on to reprise the role in subsequent DC Extended Universe adventures, with "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and both versions of "Justice League." Thanks to the character's notable presence in all these movies, not to mention Adams being such an iconic performer, this version of Lois Lane has become quite prominent in the pop culture landscape.
However, there's plenty about this Lois that's been largely undiscussed by the general public. This includes everything from other potential actors who could've portrayed her to challenges Adams has faced in playing the role and even what this performer believes her future as Lois entails. The untold truth about Lois Lane suggests that, much like how Clark Kent is far more than he appears to be, there's so much hiding beneath the surface of this Daily Planet reporter.
Who else could've been Lois Lane?
As the cast of "Man of Steel" was first getting assembled, lots of names were tossed around as potential picks to play the newest live-action incarnation of Lois Lane. According to Latino Review (via ScreenRant), Olivia Wilde was pursued for the part. Interestingly, she would go on to voice the character in the 2022 animated movie "DC League of Super-Pets." Meanwhile, Rachel McAdams and Mila Kunis were also rumored as prospective names for the part. The latter performer would've been an especially timely choice since, at the time that "Man of Steel" was narrowing down actors for this role, Kunis was hot off her dramatic turn in "Black Swan."
In 2019, Zack Snyder would reveal (via Cinema Debate) another name that wasn't just considered for the part but was one of two finalists for Lois. Per the filmmaker, the role of Lois Lane came down to either Zoe Saldana or Amy Adams. Saldana's lengthy experience, even at this point, in sci-fi blockbusters thanks to "Star Trek" and "Avatar" make it easy to see why she'd be a major candidate for the role. Of course, Adams would score the part, securing her place in the DC Extended Universe — although it's pretty interesting to imagine what actors like Saldana could've done with the role.
Amy Adams had auditioned for Lois Lane before
While "Man of Steel" was the first time that Amy Adams would play Lois Lane in a movie, it wasn't her first brush with the character. Talking to The Express, Adams recalled how she'd auditioned for the Lois Lane role on two separate occasions, long before "Man of Steel" was ever green-lit. The first of these came for an unmade "Superman" movie, in which she tried out against Matt Bomer (who was playing Superman in the audition). She didn't secure the role there, which ended up being a non-issue since the whole production failed to move forward.
The second instance of her auditioning for Lois Lane came with the 2006 movie "Superman Returns." Adams didn't get this incarnation of the character either, with Kate Bosworth scoring the part instead. Despite all these setbacks, Adams kept pursuing the character because she saw so much of Lois within herself. "You'd think I would have learned," Adams said, "but I have enough Lois in me that I was like, 'I'm gonna keep trying...' I would have been, like, 75 and still auditioning." This strength in her determination for the role eventually paid off with her securing the part in "Man of Steel" and getting to reprise the character in multiple subsequent DC Extended Universe installments.
What excited Adams about this version of Lois
Given that Lois Lane had been portrayed so many times in live-action movies before "Man of Steel," it'd be understandable to wonder what would attract an actor of Amy Adams' caliber to a role that didn't seem to offer new ground to explore. However, the legacy of Lois Lane didn't intimate Adams when she was offered the role. Talking to The Los Angeles Times, Adams recalled how her lifelong obsession with wanting to be Lois herself, rather than just playing her in a movie, helped guide her towards this role.
Further expanding on her reasons for playing the role to USA Today, Adams noted that she loved the idea of playing a decidedly 21st-century lady in a big superhero movie, as well as depicting a woman in one of these blockbusters who wasn't shiny and perfect. Plus, the idea of having a similar impact on modern young girls as Margot Kidder's Lois Lane had on an adolescent Adams just sealed the deal and ensured that Adams had to take on the newest incarnation of Lois Lane.
Why Amy Adams was pursued for the role
It's not difficult to imagine why anyone would want Amy Adams to be in their movie. Her track record of delivering richly lived-in performances in films ranging from "Arrival" to "The Muppets" is incredible — the kind of feat few other modern actors have accomplished. It was these gifts that made director Zack Snyder want Adams for his unique vision of the "Superman" universe. In a statement celebrating Adams getting officially cast in "Man of Steel" (via The Hollywood Reporter), Snyder commented, "Amy has the talent to capture all of the qualities we love about Lois: smart, tough, funny, warm, ambitious and, of course, beautiful."
Snyder expanded on why Adams was cast to The Los Angeles Times, revealing that Adams managed to stand out to the filmmaker even after a barrage of auditions from other performers for the part. There were lots of other actors swirling around in Snyder's mind when it came to the role of Lois Lane, but a single meeting with Adams went so well that Snyder knew she was a shoo-in for the role. With that, the DC Extended Universe version of Lois Lane finally had a performer — and an extremely acclaimed one at that!
The pressure of following up Margot Kidder's performance
One issue that any actor in a "Superman" movie is going to face is the pressure of living up to past big-screen incarnations of characters like Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. There haven't just been previous versions of these figures — there have been downright iconic interpretations inhabited by legendary actors like Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman. This is also true of Lois Lane, who was famously portrayed by Margot Kidder in the original "Superman" movies released in the 1970s and '80s. Living up to Kidder's work in the role offered big shoes to fill for anyone taking on the character of Lois Lane.
Talking to Yahoo!, Adams was upfront about living up to the legacy of Lois Lane on the big screen. Noting that she was enamored with Kidder's performance as the character after adoring the original two "Superman" movies as a kid, Adams was daunted by the idea of following up her take on the reporter. "It's hard to step into a role where you thought someone had already achieved what could be achieved," Adams explained. However, Adams also noted that she had immense experience with stage productions, where it's common for countless actors to inhabit one role. Keeping that in mind, Adams felt like she could create something new and not just rehash Kidder's classic performance from decades earlier.
What Amy Adams wanted for Lois in Batman v Superman
After Amy Adams made her debut as Lois Lane in "Man of Steel," the DC Extended Universe began to ramp up in a big way. Rather than just doing a traditional sequel to "Man of Steel," the next step in this sprawling saga would be "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." This project would both debut Ben Affleck's Caped Crusader and deliver the first live-action incarnation of Wonder Woman, as well as tease out other "Justice League" superheroes like the Flash and Aquaman. Adams was also in the mix, reprising her role as Lois in a part that would help merge the world of "Man of Steel" with the broader DC mythos.
Shortly after the news of Gal Gadot getting cast as Wonder Woman, Adams divulged to Superhero Hype that her hopes for the project weren't about what other DC superheroes could appear in the movie or anything of that nature. Instead, now that Gadot was confirmed to be a prominent character in the film, Adams was hoping she would have a noticeable dynamic with another female character in "Dawn of Justice." As she explained, "I hope that I can be involved with a woman on screen where we're not in a love triangle. That would be fun. Maybe where we team up together, and we work as teammates instead of adversaries."
Fortunately, there was no love triangle involved. Sadly, the two characters didn't team up either. Still, it's interesting to see that Amy Adams' hopes for the feature were grounded and personal.
Lois Lane was the first film character Adams played twice
Throughout her career, Amy Adams has gone to a wide variety of places, exploring everything from musicals to inspirational sports stories to grim indie fare. Her boldness as a performer is a key reason why she's become such a beloved actor — you just never know what she's going to do next. With "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," Adams once again went into unknown territory. Though she was technically in familiar terrain since she was reprising her role as Lois Lane in "Dawn of Justice," this blockbuster marked the first time that Adams had played the same movie character more than once.
As Adams explained to The Guardian in 2015, "I've just had my first experience of bringing a character back, playing Lois Lane again, and it was fun to take her on a new journey. There are occasions where I'm grateful to let the character go. That's how I felt about Sydney in 'American Hustle.'" Unlike her aforementioned con artist character, Adams evidently enjoyed playing Lois so much that she would reprise the role again in "Justice League." While Adams has largely stuck to one-off roles outside of her Daily Planet reporter portrayals, she also evidently loves the character of Giselle, evidenced by her turns in "Enchanted" and its 2022 sequel, "Disenchanted."
Adams' favorite moment shooting Batman v Superman
In the fall of 2015, Amy Adams spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her experience playing Lois Lane once again on the set of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." While noting that portraying a character in a blockbuster of this scale was an enormous time commitment since filming lasted six months, she also said she had a blast working with the character. In particular, she noted that her favorite scene to shoot was one in which she got to interact with both Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman. Noting that the duo had already shot numerous scenes together before she arrived, Cavill and Affleck had already cemented a rapport that Adams enjoyed walking into.
While Adams refused to specify what scene this was out of concern for spoilers, it seems clear that this "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" moment has to be when Lois saves Superman from being stabbed by Batman or the scene directly afterward. Given that these are the only scenes of the movie that focus squarely on Lois, the Dark Knight, and the Man of Steel, they seem to be the only candidates for the sequence Adams is talking about. Shooting big blockbusters is rarely easy, but as Adams can attest, it becomes a little easier when you get to shoot scenes opposite actors dressed as iconic superheroes.
The biggest struggle Adams has in playing Lois Lane
In late 2016, Amy Adams sat down for a chat, organized by Variety, with Andrew Garfield, who's also starred in superhero movies as Spider-Man. Their shared experiences seemed to allow Adams to come clean about some of her trepidations with working on this kind of movie. As she explained, "I love playing [Lois Lane], I love everyone I work with, but sometimes it's tricky because I feel she's in service of the story instead of the story serving a character. That can be tricky: When you show up and you really want to retain a character and you have to serve the story."
These comments from Adams were about how "Man of Steel" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" were both part of a larger cinematic universe. They weren't focused on the life and times of her character but rather on fleshing out a larger shared continuity inhabited by superheroes. For Adams, this was sometimes a challenge since it could give her little to work with in a given scene. Still, even with this struggle, Adams repeatedly emphasized that she loved playing Lois, including getting to play her throughout multiple movies. She was in good company in making these complaints since Garfield's stint as Peter Parker was tripped up by its own problems servicing larger continuity ambitions over satisfying standalone stories.
Amy Adams on the future of Lois Lane
For a multitude of reasons, including shifting ownership of Warner Bros., the DC Extended Universe has always been in a constant state of flux. Some characters in this franchise, such as Wonder Woman, haven't been impacted by all this uncertainty. Other notable figures in this saga have certainly seen their presence in the DC Extended Universe dwindle sharply or even vanish outright as this franchise shifts creative gears. The incarnation of Lois Lane played by Amy Adams has, unfortunately, become an example of the latter. While she appeared in three of the first five DC Extended Universe titles, she hasn't appeared in any movies in this franchise since (save for "Zack Snyder's Justice League.")
Speaking to Empire Magazine in its May 2020 issue, Adams noted that she would jump back into playing Lois Lane in heartbeat, but she didn't expect to get the call to reprise the role anytime soon. "'I would totally be open to playing Lois, but I think (the studio is) moving in a different direction, from what I understand," Adams explained (via Metro). While this was all initially just speculation, the lack of even a whisper of Adams returning as Lane in the years since these comments indicates she may have been on to something. As the DC Extended Universe continues to evolve, Amy Adams has been, unfortunately, left in the dust.
There was almost a Bruce/Lois romance in Justice League
While Zack Snyder was eventually able to realize many of his ideas for a "Justice League" movie with his 2021 director's cut, there were certain concepts he had for this feature that would never get off the ground. One of these notions was for a romance to blossom between Lois Lane and Bruce Wayne. This would've occurred after Superman's demise at the end of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," which would've theoretically left Lois single and the door open for a new superhero to be the love of her life.
"The intention was that Bruce fell in love with Lois and then realized that the only way to save the world was to bring Superman back to life," Snyder said about the prospective romance to Vanity Fair. "So he had this insane conflict, because Lois, of course, was still in love with Superman. We had this beautiful speech where [Bruce] said to Alfred, 'I never had a life outside the cave. I never imagined a world for me beyond this. But this woman makes me think that if I can get this group of gods together, then my job is done. I can quit. I can stop.' And of course that doesn't work out for him." It was a bold idea, but Warner Bros. nixed it early on — so early that it never made it past the screenwriting stage.
Lois Lane was supposed to die in the Justice League sequel
Even though he never got to bring them to life, Zack Snyder had vivid and detailed plans for a pair of "Justice League" follow-ups. The first of these would've paid off a line from Ezra Miller's Flash in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," in which a version of this character from the future briefly pops through a wormhole to tell Bruce Wayne, "Lois! Lois Lane is the key!"
As Snyder explained to Vanity Fair, the meaning of this line would've been clarified in the first "Justice League" sequel, in which Darkseid comes to Earth. Superman decides to confront this foe and entrusts Batman to keep Lois safe. At the advice of Lex Luthor, Darkseid eventually kills Lois as a way to weaken Superman. After this death, Superman is overpowered by Darkseid and the Anti-Life Equation, which kicks off a series of events that lead to the Knightmare version of Earth seen in visions in "Dawn of Justice" and "Zack Snyder's Justice League."
Lois' demise would've altered the entire fabric of the DC Extended Universe, though there were apparently also plans to eventually save her in a later "Justice League" installment through time-travel antics fueled by the Mother Boxes. Though this storyline wasn't fully realized in the DC Extended Universe, we did get glimpses of these events — including a peek at Superman clutching Lane's corpse — during various scenes in "Zack Snyder's Justice League."