As the chatter around James Gunn's Superman movie — the first installment of DC Studios' upcoming slate of movies and TV series — heats up, we've learned that one Euphoria star rejected reading for the main role because of an unexpected reason.

During an interview for GQ promoting Sofia Coppola's Priscilla (in which he plays Elvis Presley), Jacob Elordi briefly discussed his relationship with blockbuster cinema and comic book properties, claiming he was a huge fan of Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight (who isn't?) and revealing that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was his latest favorite: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem... I've seen that movie four times. That movie is so funny. Those kids, I think they're so hilarious. It’s super, super meticulous and well thought-out. In the hotels, it's been my comfort movie." All this praise for movies based on comic books made his answer regarding Superman more confusing.

When asked about "dark roles" he'd taken on so far, he brought up Superman, saying that he'd been asked to read for it, but rejected the opportunity: "That was immediately, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s too much. That’s too dark for me." If you ask us, he was either being ironic or simply hadn't learned much about the character beyond the most recent on-screen iteration, played by Henry Cavill. To be fair, if you've only been exposed to Zack Snyder's take on Kal-El, maybe your mental image of the character isn't too cheery, but Man of Steel and Justice League weren't exactly hopeless (more like the opposite) despite the more serious tone versus previous takes on the character, so it's a head-scratcher of a reply regardless.

However, Elordi later made a logical point about caring about the projects he takes on: "How is caring about your output pretentious?... But not caring, and knowingly feeding people shit, knowing that you’re making money off of people’s time, which is literally the most valuable thing that they have – how is that the cool thing?" This likely explains why he's been trying (so far) to distance himself from big franchises. The 26-year-old is only getting started and has been landing some amazing roles in great projects, and stuff like DC and Marvel (and their big paychecks) isn't going anywhere, so why rush to limit your choices with big commitments so early on?

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