It’s the official beginning of the end for The CW’s beloved Arrowverse as the fourth and final season of the tremendous Superman & Lois takes off. Picking up on the heels of Season 3’s cliffhanger (all the way back in June 2023), the opener explodes with an interstellar smackdown between Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and the monstrous Doomsday that is a visual-effects triumph.
Back on Earth, Supes’ wife, Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) is in crisis too: Michael Cudlitz’s Lex Luthor, furious that her reporting led to his wrongful imprisonment, is hellbent on making her pay in the most tragic way. Here, The Walking Dead vet teases what else to expect as the series returns. Plus, watch an exclusive sneak peek from the October 7 premiere above.
At the San Diego Comic-Con panel, Bitsie, Tyler and [showrunners] Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher were absolutely raving about working with you. And then I saw your IG post about how this was one of the jobs that you will forever remember. So what was so special about this?
Michael Cudlitz: Oh my gosh. First off, well, I don’t even know if it’s first off, but it’s Lex Luthor, come on. [Laughs] But look, when I came on the show, it was a very successful show. I could not have been more welcomed by Bitsie and Tyler, the creative team, and the whole rest of the entire cast. It’s rare that happens to that extent. That being said, I did have a similar experience when I came onto The Walking Dead, so it just makes everything better. You’re just starting at a better place. Everybody’s relaxed, everybody’s confident with what they’re doing. There’s a level of trust. And from a creative standpoint, they kind of let me take what they wrote and just run with it.
Todd Helbing, Damian Holbrook, Elizabeth Tulloch, Tyler Hoechlin, and Brent Fletcher at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
This is a different kind of Lex Luthor. He’s more grounded.
This is a character that is so well known and known in different ways, depending upon what segment of the fan base you land in—how old you are, which graphic novels or comics you read, which TV shows you watched, which movies you watched. So there’s a long lineage of Lex. He’s been done very well, and he’s crashed and burned a couple of times. So coming onto this show, having them trust me and say, “Let’s see your take on it,” was just fantastic and such a gift.
It’s almost like a grassroots version of Lex.
I would not push back on that. I think that the specific issue Lex has, the fact that it’s so close to him and his family instead of an “idea” that he’s fighting for, is that there’s the hatred of Superman and the hatred of aliens. He literally is all the things he hates or professes he hates. And this really brings it to a personal level, the story we’re telling. People have said he’s a much darker Lex and I would argue that he’s incredibly passionate about what he’s fighting for and is willing to do anything to right this wrong.
I was saying that he is probably the most in-pain Lex that we’ve ever seen.
Oh, 100 percent. A hundred percent. All of it comes from pain.
And that humanizes him.
Well, we hope it’s something that does. Obviously, through the season, we deal with the processing of this loss he’s had. We saw last season what brought him to their doorstep, literally and figuratively. And we will take that to its logical end.
Katie Yu/The CW
The season is adapting the comic book story The Death of Superman, so does this mean we’re going to see a lot of Lex vs. Lois?
I want to make sure I’m not slipping into anything that will be spoilerish for the audience. [Laughs] But yes, absolutely. In his mind, she is the cause of [his imprisonment]. So there is a refocus of his ire, but trust me, he has issues with Superman too.
Given that Lex also blames Lois and Superman for destroying his relationship with his daughter, how much of a threat is Lex to the Kent kids (Michael Bishop and Alex Garfin)?
It’s safe to say Lex has a problem with the entire family. [Laughs]
Colin Bentley/The CW
And what can you tell me about his new ally, Amanda McCoy? Because she comes up in the first episode and I found her to be fascinating, but also very seemingly tormented.
Yvonne Chapman, who plays Amanda, is incredible. I won’t go too much into that other than to say that she is integral in Lex’s world and the comic-book fans will remember her. This is not the Arrowverse. We have our own world and within that world, we borrow elements from many other worlds to create it. And they’re all true and all sort of feed off of each other and are complimentary, including from where we meet Lex, where he has last season, with a full head of red hair, which is very accurate to how we meet him in 1940. So we sort of play with that evolution of Lex’s and I think the audience is going to find it incredibly, incredibly satisfying.
And Amanda holds a lot of power…
Luther Corp was still running while he was in prison. And I can say this, Amanda has been running Luther Corp for him.
Have you heard from or spoken to any past Lexes?
I’d met [Smallville‘s] Michael Rosenbaum previously at conventions and in passing. We have a lot of mutual friends and I did an interview with him for his podcast when I was up shooting Clarice in Toronto. And we had a fantastic, fantastic interview. None of this was even in the works yet, obviously, it was two years prior. I know Jon Cryer had said something nice to sort of ease the fans who were upset that he was not moving over [from Supergirl], but I don’t think that Michael has really been interviewed or asked specifically about it. Look, we who do this understand it’s different worlds, different actors, different places in time. Nobody got fired so I could do Lex. It’s a different Lex and a different world. I can only imagine that Michael will be very pleased.
Shane Harvey/The CW
Lex also brings with him a very cool partner-in-crime in Doomsday. Although, can anyone control that monster?
I would say [Lex] feels that Doomsday at some point becomes an extension of himself and, in a way, a surrogate child to do his bidding. We’ll see how that plays out. We’ve created the Frankenstein monster, but what have we really created?
You mentioned how each person comes to these characters based on their generation and the content they consumed. What helped you most with your Lex?
There are some things that are constant in Lex, and I think Brian Azzarello did a wonderful graphic novel series [called Lex Luthor: Man of Steel] literally on Lex and from Lex’s perspective. I got a tremendous amount of insight from that, at least for where I base my psychology of Lex. It is based on someone who’s an expert in the field and he really capsulized and summarized Lex’s perspective really wonderfully through his storytelling. The whole thing has been an incredible, incredible experience.
And I honestly cannot wait to share this one with the CW audience and ultimately the world I think that the showrunners Todd and Brent do an incredible job with. In most cases, I say ‘Tell your story the way you want to tell your story and don’t worry about the fans because the fans have grabbed onto something you love and now you’re taking them on a ride.’ And in this case, I kind of bend that because they did what they wanted to do—the show is ending—so they had enough time to end it the way they wanted to end it. But they were still aware of what the fans are going to hope for and expect. And I feel like there’s an incredible amount of fan service done with how the show is ending, tying up loose ends, leaving things open that should be left open, and really just taking them on a fantastic ride.
I have seen the finale and it’s incredible. I was lucky enough also throughout the series I directed and was really, really pleased with it. And I got to work with some of the other cast members that I didn’t get to work with when I was playing Lex. So I really did get to work with, I think, the entire cast, actually. And the fans will be…let’s just say we don’t Tony Soprano them. [Laughs]
Thank god! Now, before you go, I need to know… You were a recurring guest star on Beverly Hills 90210 back in the day and you were also a construction guy on the show’s crew? How does that happen?!
Okay. See now I’m glad you brought this up. Now I’m going to bend your brain. I was the construction coordinator on Beverly Hills 9021o while I was acting on the show, while I was pursuing my career. I actually booked A River Runs Through It while I was doing it, too, so I had to take a little bit of time off. I had to leave. But all the other jobs I did in L.A., I went back and forth between construction and acting. And then after Band of Brothers, I was able to leave construction. I’m a 14-year vested IATSE union member, a construction coordinator, and a prop maker. Oh, and while I was at Beverly Hills 9021o being a construction coordinator, Todd Helbing was a production assistant! Todd, at the time, used to bring lunch to the main cast. [Laughs]
Superman & Lois, Fourth and Final Season Premiere, Monday, October 7, 8/7c, The CW
