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9 months ago
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Bassem Youssef is setting the record straight on the Superman Legacy controversy after he suggested he was dropped from the DC film following his public support for Palestine.
In a video Youssef posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he said he wanted “to address the Superman fiasco once and for all because the internet twists facts, words, and basically everything else.”
“First of all, I’m a huge fan of James Gunn, nothing but love and respect for this guy,” Youssef started off his video praising the DC Studios co-head who is also the writer and director of Superman Legacy.
Youssef recalled that in June 2023, one day before the actors strike, he got an audition for the new Superman film. The actor said that less than an hour after submitting his audition, he received a call from his agent about setting up a Zoom call with Gunn.
“I have a great call with James. He tells me he likes to interview actors to make sure that everybody has good chemistry on set,” Youssef said. “Everybody in the business knows that this is a great day. You do an audition, in one hour you get the call. It’s an amazing thing. Me and my agents celebrate; the universe is smiling for us.”
He continued, “And then months go by. On October 7, I go on Piers Morgan’s show [and] I do two interviews. And then after the interview, right after the strike ends, we get a call from the studio who said, ‘Bassem is no longer with us because the script has been changed.'”
“Now, you see where I can see from my point of view, the timing was bad, even if there was a script change, this looks very bad because a lot of people lost roles because of their political stance,” he noted.
Youssef said he had not talked about being cut from the superhero movie and “was sad for three days” but had put the issue behind him. The stand-up comic said he would go on Chris Cuomo’s podcast where he was asked about losing out on jobs for his political beliefs. When he talked about it with Cuomo, Youssef said he “felt there was a little big of a rigid residual of anger and bitterness in me and I didn’t like that.”
He would go on to do interviews with BBC, where he was asked if he had lost any opportunities, and he told the story again but says he talked about it with no anger or bitterness, adding, “I tried to be as empathic as possible.”
When things “blew up,” Youssef says he received a call from Gunn who told him that he was never officially with the movie as he usually does camera tests before filming stars. Youssef noted that he told Gunn that from his perspective it looks different, which the director agreed with.
“It was just mishandled and the timing was bad,” Youssef added. “But as I said in the interview, I don’t want to believe there was no ill intention, and I think it was an honest oversight. And I hope it’s true and I hope there was nothing else but that. I haven’t thought about it and I don’t like to complain or victimize myself. I am actually very grateful for the life that I have, to travel and to earn my living by making people laugh.”
See Youssef’s full statement in the video posted below.
