David Corenswet, who stars in the newly released “Superman” out July 11, has what you would call a shayna punim (pretty face in Yiddish). He is, as Superman tends to be, easy on the eyes.
Corenswet is also, like the original creators of the iconic character he’s embodying, Jewish.
In 1938, Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel created the character of Superman, whose birth name is Kal-El, a combination of the Hebrew word for easy or light and the Hebrew word for God. And now, Corenswet is making history as the first Jewish actor to step into the Man of Steel’s very form-fitting suit.
The fact that his co-star is Midge Maisel, aka Rachel Brosnahan, who plays Lois Lane in the film, just feels like the cherry on top.
Corenswet hasn’t spoken much about his Jewish identity publicly. He lives with his wife, Julia (who he met at theater camp, of course) and their toddler daughter in his native Philly, where he likes to keep private about his personal life.
Still, there are signs that he embraces his Jewish identity — like this adorable selfie he took with the rabbi who officiated his interfaith wedding at New Orleans’ Immaculate Conception church:
Via Rabbi Cohn/JTA
“The bride and groom were just so determined to intersperse the Jewish traditions with the Catholic traditions, which to me just enhanced the beauty and the strength of both faiths,” their wedding coordinator told JTA, adding that Rabbi Edward Cohn “kind of ran the show.”
Cohn is the rabbi of New Orleans’ oldest Reform synagogue, Temple Sinai, and said that he believes Corenswet cares a lot about his Jewish identity. The Corenswet families and Temple Sinai go back at least two generations. Corenswet’s grandfather, Sam Coreswet Jr., used to frequent the synagogue, and Cohn described him as a “bright, worldly, well-educated southern gentleman.” His uncle, Jay Corenswet, used to be the director of the synagogue, and his father, John Corenswet, an actor turned lawyer, used to attend services, too. When he died of cancer in 2019, his memorial service was held there.
Corenswet and his father were really close. The Julliard grad would take an NYC subway token that belonged to his father with him to auditions. “My dad was an enthusiastic father and stayed home with my sister for a period when she was very little, and was very good with kids,” Corenswet told People this week. He was raised in a home where the kids were not allowed to watch TV, but the two watched old films together. Corenswet first was charmed by acting when he saw his younger sister, Amy, in a production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” His first acting role was in an Arden Theater production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons.”
“I had a very full-on introduction to the craft, doing two scenes in Act One of one of the greatest American plays ever written,” he told Entertainement Weekly. “Then going home before intermission so I could get to bed early and wake up for school the next morning.”
John was there when his son got the call about his first series regular role in Ryan Murphy’s “The Politician.” In the show, Corenswet played River, who ran against Ben Platt’s character for school president. His character dies by suicide in the first episode, so getting a series regular role for playing what is essentially a ghost is a pretty good indication that Corenswet just has that it factor.
Getting that job allowed Corenswet to spend the last six months of John’s life caring for his father as he waited to work on his next Ryan Murphy project, “Hollywood.” He told CBS that he felt incredibly lucky to be able to have that time with his father, to have late night talks about life.
Aside from their mutual love of acting, it seems that Corenswet also inherited from his father what I would call Jewish dad energy. He said that long before he became a father himself, he was always the “dad” of the friend group, the guy that you come to when you need to help. “I have terrible jokes that nobody laughs at,” he joked with People.
It’s the perfect energy to play Kal-El, a reliable guy who in real life always feels like a bit of an awkward outsider. Is Superman the Jewish dad of superheroes? I think he just might be.
As for previous Jewish roles, I’m happy to report that I dug up a web series in 2018 in which his character Merryweather tells his friend Jerry, who gets the date of Passover wrong, that he’s about to go to his cousin’s seder the following week. “You realize I’m half-Jewish?” he asks. In 2020, he also told MTV about a discovery he made about his aunt’s matzah balls: “We just discovered over Passover that her special recipe for matzo balls, which are the greatest matzo balls you’ve ever had in your life, is actually just the recipe on the back of the Manischewitz matzo ball mix box.”
Beyond the joy of seeing a Jewish superhero, having a Jewish actor play Superman in particular does feel especially meaningful. His story does, after all, have so many Jewish undertones. In many ways, he is like Moses, sent away from his home planet in a spaceship for his safety, assimilating with the people of his new home. The story of Jewish assimilation is also well-reflected in his journey — always keeping his outsider identity hidden to blend in. And of course, in his original iterations, the superhuman created by the sons of Jewish immigrants who came to America to escape antisemitism was fighting literal Nazis.
So yes, it’s really lovely to have Superman not only played by a Jewish actor, but one who seems, quite like the hero himself, to be quite the mensch.
