Harry Lennix Talks BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN SDCC Announcement And Whether Or Not He’ll Appear

After playing Lieutenant General Swanwick in this summer’s Man of Steel, Harry Lennix was brought on stage at San Diego Comic-Con one month later to help announce the sequel, Batman vs. Superman. He read a quote from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which director Zack Snyder said would “inform” the storyline. Now, speaking with Collider, Lennix reflects on the event. “First of all, when I went there, Tom Cruise was on a panel. I saw Tom Cruise walk off the stage, and I’m a huge Tom Cruise fan, from the time he started. And then, Zack [Snyder] introduced me and the people understood what was coming. It was all in real time, and the audience was playing catch-up to the mysterious weight of this reading. Just to be a part of that and to really be going on auto-pilot was just surreal. It was like an out-of-body experience. I couldn’t see anybody out there, just because of the nature of the configuration, but I could feel them. It’s like having sonar. You could feel this wave of energy coming up, the lights black out, and then I went off stage. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. When’s the next time I’m ever going to be able to say that Batman and Superman are going to be in the same movie. That’s crazy! And then, I got to meet Tom Cruise after I made that announcement, and what a gentleman. He’s such a gracious man.” 

Lennix is then asked if he will reprise the role of Swanwick in Batman vs. Superman. He is unsure, and he is grateful for a role in Man of Steel even if he doesn’t return for the sequel, but says that he has some confidence that he’ll be back. “Well, to be honest, whether or not I’m in the next movie, it was fun to do that. I would have done it, even if they’d said, “We’ll never see you again.” I’d have still been thrilled just to be a part of it, as I was with the first film. When I heard that they were going to be doing Man of Steel, I thought to myself, “Man, that would be great!  I would play a street sweeper in that.” And then, to have actually been a part of that whole process, not in the writing of it, obviously, but through the casting and the reading of the script, was a great honor. I have some confidence that I’m gonna be in the next installment.” You can click the link above for Lennix’s full interview with Collider.