JOHNS: Lex appeared early in Superman's career.
Back then, he had hair. He had red hair.
So, like the movie, he first started with hair.
And he was a mad scientist at first.
For a long, long time, he was just a mad scientist
and wanted to destroy Superman.
And ultimately, it was John Byrne in the 1980s
who reinvented Lex Luthor as a businessman.
And he had a company, LexCorp.
And he became a different kind of modern-day adversary for Superman.
PHIL JIMENEZ: Superhero comics generally are about
superheroes going out to fight supervillains.
And in every corner of the DC Universe,
we are seeing re-imaginings of the characters themselves.
The modernization of Lex is a good complement for my Superman
because that's essentially what we tried to do with Man of Steel,
was bring Superman into the present day in the modern world,
and Lex is a facet of that.
EISENBERG: I think Lex in a way set up his company with...
I guess I would call it some kind of faux magnanimity,
where it seems like the employees are all equal colleagues.
He's eschewed any kind of status or hierarchy.
As you meet him, you start to realize, though, it's a total facade.
He conducts his own business from a very isolated and dark place.
Speech, speech. Uh...
Blah, blah, blah. Uh...
Open bar.
(CLEARS THROAT) The end.
EISENBERG: This speech was written by Chris Terrio,
and it's so incredible.
It exactly parallels what I think my character is doing for humanity,
saving humanity against Superman,
and for that, I'm punished.
The word "philanthropist" comes from the Greek.
Meaning a lover of humanity.
It was coined about 2,500 years ago
in a little play about a Titan named Prometheus,
who had to choose sides between gods and men.
And he chose us.
And he ruined Zeus' plan to destroy mankind,
and for that he was given a thunderbolt.
(IMITATES THUNDERBOLT ZAPPING)
That seems unfair.
This speech is so clever because it starts out about philanthropy,
and then it actually turns into this very rich, textured, layered speech
about this thing that my character's dealing with.
The bittersweet pain among men
is having knowledge with no power, because...
Yes, lW0uld. (CLEARS THROAT)
There was a take on Lex Luthor from a book called Superman: Birthright,
where he was too smart.
He understood too much.
He was crazy because his mind could never turn off.
This is the smartest man in the room.
This might be the smartest man on the planet.
You've lost.
No,no,no.
I don't know how to lose.
You'll learn.
He's dealing with a lot of what we would consider modern psychological problems,
and we'd probably diagnose him today
as some kind of narcissistic sociopath or something,
where he doesn't have what we would consider maybe empathy.
He sees people as paper dolls, pawns.
As an actor, it's really fun 'cause you end up being able to do
all the things that you're not allowed to do in public without getting arrested,
and you're able to charm people in a way that is kind of gross
but is fun to act out in a safe environment.
Obeys only me!
Born to destroy you.
Your Doomsday.
So Lex creates Doomsday,
tells Superman, "He's born to be your destroyer."
Lex has a kind of Freudian psychology,
and he creates kind of a son. He thinks of Doomsday like a son.
He takes Zod's body and uses it to create Doomsday.
And he has this almost paternal feeling for Doomsday.
But Lex determines that that is the best way to kill Superman.
Cut it out! That's great.
JOHNS: Lex in the film is very maniacal.
He's just starting out.
He's on his way to becoming the iconic Lex Luthor in the comic books,
but it's a very different version.
EISENBERG: There is a mythology around Superman,
which is why there are all these religious aspects to Superman.
There are all these, frankly, god-like parallels.
Lex is the Satan. He's the kind of all evil
in the same way, I guess, Satan is sometimes depicted as charming.
So, Lex, in that way, is like the kind of mythological evil.
-It's pretty exciting. How do you feel? - Great.
- Are you nervous? - No, I feel great.
- Yeah, yeah, good. - Is it cathartic?
Yeah, I think so.
ZACK: The way we're doing it is, he's gonna shave the front of your head.
He'll start at the front and go...
(IMITATES WHIRRING)
And we have two cameras.
And then we go just... Reset to the cameras behind.
And then... (IMITATES WHIRRING) He'll shave the back.
And then what we do is, I go to an overhead.
And then he puts the shaving cream on your head.
- And then he starts the straight razor. - EISENBERG: Mmm-hmm.
ZACK: And then we finish in sort of a close-up. And then we pull back.
And you can do your sort of Stanley Kubrick, like head down.
(EISENBERG CHUCKLES)
EISENBERG: Lex views himself as a savior of mankind,
so he views Superman as just existentially wrong.
Like, this guy should not exist,
and that creates a very dangerous person.