Awards and nearly one hundred nominations. Included are one three-time recipient, composer conductor John Williams; and two holders of the "Best Actor" Award, Marion Brando and Gene Hack-man. A dual winner (for "On The Waterfront" and "The Godfather") and five-time nominee, Brando is almost as much a legend -in his own way - as Superman. He plays Jor-El, Superman's father and the leading scientist of the doomed planet, Krypton. "It's a crucial role," explained Donner, "which sets the tone and style of the film."

Gene Hackman, who won his Oscar as Popeye, the compulsive narc in "The French Connection," is seen as Lex Luthor, the evil genius who pits his cunning against Superman's strength. For Gene Hackman, who believes that variety is the spice of an acting career, SUPERMAN was a "romp." "I don't know why they thought of me; I'm not sure I would have thought of me," remarks the chameleon-like Oscar winner. "But Lex Luthor was the best time I've had on a movie set in years. Someone once said that the villains have all the fun, and Luthor is the ultimate villain. "He's a real estate wheeler-dealer with a predeliction for waterfront property . like Australia! From his luxurious lair in the bowels of the earth beneath Metropolis, he concocts the most bizarre, yet weirdly logical super-crime in history."

Casting the crucial role of Superman presented the film's creators with a subtle and deep challenge. First, as Ilya Salkind pointed out, the actor chosen would have to create two distinctively different characterizations: "Disguised as Clark Kent, a reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet, he is meek, mild-mannered and totally inept in moments of danger. His writing may some day win a Pulitzer. But alone with Lois Lane, whom he secretly loves, he is awkward and speechless. "Which makes him just the opposite of Superman, who can fly, vault skyscrapers, out-muscle locomotives, start fires with a glare, freeze deserts with his breath, peer through any substance except lead and shrug off grenades, all of which he does in a never-ending battle against crime." The dual personality, adds Salkind, is what has made Superman such a great legend. "Almost all of us see something of Clark Kent in ourselves and something of what we would like to be in Superman." he points out. After months of speculation and rumor, the moviemakers tapped Christopher Reeve, who was brought to them by casting director, Lynn Stalmaster. Reeve's description as an "unknown" isn't quite true to the facts. At the age of twenty-four, Reeve had worked more than ten years as a professional actor, including a stint on Broadway and on tour opposite Katharine Hepburn in the play, "A Matter of Gravity." Capturing that conflicting persona on screen, adds director Richard Donner, meant threading a thin line between illusion and reality. "We knew we had to avoid the trap which so many movies, sired by comic strips, have fallen into - parody or outright 'camp.' That approach would have achieved what scores of villains, including the unspeakably evil Lex Luthor himself, have failed to do - destroy Superman. "Of course, the movie is bigger than life," he continues, "but amidst the most incredible adventures, the characters have reality. Even more important, it is a reality to the characters themselves. SUPERMAN is a comedy, a love story, an adventure and its own thing. "But it is not a send-up." Reeve developed not only his biceps, but his interpretation of the dual role. The taped hero, standing hands-on-hips as bullets glanced off his chest, was only one aspect of Superman. "But there is more to him than that," says the young actor. "In a sense, he is a stranger in a strange land, a solitary man with extra-terrestrial powers, trying hard to fit into his adopted planet. "He has warmth and a fine sense of humor, even about his own super-human strength."

The search for Superman Clark Kent was matched in its intensity by the hunt for Lois Lane. She had to be bright, spunky, pretty, and capable of projecting a fond indulgence with the fumbling Clark and a zesty romance with his steely alter-ego. The nod finally went to Margot Kidder, who admits that she spent the first sixteen years of her life 'fantasizing', and the next thirteen realizing her fantasies. "There wasn't much to do but daydream when I was growing up, so I imagined myself a princess or an heiress or a movie star." It took SUPERMAN to make her childhood dreams come true. She's not only a movie star, she's contemporary fantasy's favorite heroine.

A distinguished international cast completes the roster of citizens from Krypton, Smallville and Metropolis. Susannah York, British Academy Award winner, American "Oscar" nominee and "Best Actress" at the Cannes Film Festival is the Man of Steel's real mother, Lara on Krypton. Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter are the Kents of Smallville, who - in Ford's words - "try to give their amazing foster-son a normal American upbringing."