Vader completed Superman's training!

[JON9000]

Ha ha. It's true. I watched "Superman" with the Richard Donner commentary (which was excellent, BTW- lots of good stories) and it turns out Christopher Reeve gained 40 pounds of muscle to play Supes. He was trained by none other than David Prowse, the muscular actor who played Vader himself, as well as Julian, the writer's bodyguard, from "A Clockwork Orange."

I found the commentary great. It is really interesting to hear how the effects were done the old fashioned way through inventiveness and camera work rather than the boring old "this was done with CGI."

[scruffziller]

That's cool!!! I now have some more useless trivia for the guys at work.

[darthzirock]

Ha ha. It's true. I watched "Superman" with the Richard Donner commentary (which was excellent, BTW- lots of good stories) and it turns out Christopher Reeve gained 40 pounds of muscle to play Supes. He was trained by none other than David Prowse, the muscular actor who played Vader himself, as well as Julian, the writer's bodyguard, from "A Clockwork Orange."

Actually, this is old news. Starlog, and even Famous Monsters of Filmland (yes, it was still around back then), both reported of Prowse's weight-training of Christopher Reeve back then. Plus, relentless self-promoter that he is, Prowse has been talking about this at convention appearances and in interviews for 25 years. But, still, it's a cool bit of trivia, huh?