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"The Phone Kind of Went Silent": 'Superman's Skyler Gisondo, 28, Reveals He Didn't Know What Role He Was Auditioning For

Published

4 days ago

4th July 2025

Skyler Gisondo is about to get his chance to shine on the big screen in James Gunn‘s Superman. Known as the stunt-driving son, Gideon, in The Righteous Gemstones, he’s about to take on one of the Man of Steel’s oldest and most iconic friends, The Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen. However, while the actor looks like the perfect fit for the role, complete with a classic look and an endorsement from Gunn that he’s going to “knock you out of your socks,” it wasn’t what he initially thought he was up for. During a set visit attended by Collider’s Ross Bonaime, Gisondo confessed that he mistakenly believed he was auditioning for something much bigger.

“I thought I was auditioning for Superman,” he said, “because usually with these things, where it’s a big, important movie, it’s like you get dummy sides.” Since Gisondo hadn’t read the email too closely and because of how he thought the process would play out, he wrote off a lot of the signs that he was mistaken and even talked himself into what he thought was Gunn’s vision of an “everyday Superman.” “So, it said Jimmy, but — also, I skim emails, I really should read it better — in my head, I was just like, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have been my first choice, but James is always doing stuff outside the box. I get it, man. It’s more of an everyday Superman. That’s kind of cool.’ And then I very quickly was like, ‘No, actually, I totally see it.’”

Gisondo’s confusion eventually made for a hilarious and awkward conversation with his representatives when it was finally mentioned that he’s auditioning for Jimmy. In the end, David Corenswet would win the title role and take center stage alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. However, the story made Gisondo’s eventual casting all the more impressive. Even without knowing the role he was going to be playing, he still managed to get a callback. He may not have received the honor of playing DC’s most storied hero, but he at least got a fun story out of it, one that also got a laugh out of Gunn:

“We auditioned, I sent a tape in, and my reps called, and they were like, ‘They want you to come back in.’ I was like, ‘Oh, great! And just to clarify, I know it’s dummy sides. It’s for Superman, right?’ And the phone kind of went silent, and then one of them was just like, ‘No. They weren’t dummy sides. It said Jimmy.’ And I was like, ‘Right.’ Also, they were like, ‘How’d you get a callback? You didn’t even know who you were auditioning for?’ I don’t know, but it worked out. James loved that.”

Skyler Gisondo Believes Gunn’s Vision for Jimmy Olsen Is “Timeless”

For what it’s worth, Gisondo wasn’t the only one who bought into the idea of him being Clark Kent. “I remember telling, which I should not have done, I told my mom. I was like, ‘I think I’m auditioning for Superman, and they want me to have a callback,’” he continued. “And to this day, my mom’s like, ‘I totally see it. I think you would have been great as Superman.’” As an employee of the Daily Planet, he’ll at least be sharing plenty of time with Corenswet’s Clark and Brosnahan’s Lois, as well as Wendell Pierce, who has been tapped to play their boss and the editor-in-chief, Perry White.

Gisondo will be just the latest actor to take up the mantle of Jimmy Olsen, most recently following in the footsteps of Mechad Brooks in live-action with Supergirl and Ishmel Sahid in animation with My Adventures With Superman. In the same roundtable with Bonaime, he called Gunn’s depiction of Olsen “timeless” and described how the film, as a whole, while still coming off as fresh, also has elements of Superman’s oldest stories reflected within it. “It does feel a little bit ‘60s, in terms of the costumes and the sets and the set deck, and all that, yet tonally, with at least with the script and the words on the page, it feels super modern,” he shared. “So, it’s easy when it’s there on the page.” Jimmy, in Gisondo’s mind, feels exactly how everyone envisions him from the comics, and he was happy to be part of that process.

Superman hits theaters on July 11. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the film as it draws ever closer to release.