With James Gunn’s Superman swooping into theaters on Friday, the film’s stars David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult—who respectively portray the Man of Steel and his arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor—are out there grinding on the promotional trail. They’ve chitchatted on podcasts, attended premieres in Los Angeles and London, and modeled plenty of designer menswear on the morning-show circuit. But after days of nonstop press, the hustle of touring alongside his onscreen adversary may finally be getting to Corenswet’s psyche.
On Wednesday, Corenswet was photographed in New York City while wearing a heroically tricep-bearing ensemble: a ribbed white tank, pale khaki trousers, dark shades, and a gray sweatshirt tied diagonally across his torso. It was, by the looks of it, a pretty standard styled celebrity outfit—unless you’ve been paying especially close attention to his costar Hoult’s attention-grabbing fashion during this press run. Last week, Hoult was photographed while leaving ABC Studios in Manhattan in nearly the exact same ensemble as Corenswet’s, except that Hoult’s look was styled by Jason Bolden and his tank, jeans, and sweater all hailed from Celine.
The bag here appears to be the winking smoking gun: During Hoult’s pap walk, he, too, flexed his triceps by flashing a hefty Prada tote bag. Seemingly mocking this move, Corenswet conspicuously carried a plastic shopping bag from the Philadelphia Eagles Pro Shop. (The actor grew up and still lives just outside Philadelphia, which could account for the bag’s provenance.)
No word yet from Corenswet’s stylist Evan Simonitsch on whether or not he’s attempting to incite a true menswear duel between the two actors, but Corenswet did share a photo of his look alongside Hoult’s on Instagram. He soundtracked the post with Rosemary and Betty Clooney’s song “Sisters” from the 1954 film White Christmas; as the lyrics go, “Two different faces / But in tight places / We think and we act as one.”
“Dude’s been jacking my style since 1998,” Corenswet wrote. (It’s unclear where exactly the 1998 figure comes from—Corenswet was born in 1993; Hoult, 1989.) Underneath the post, Hoult commented a series of what ought to be understood canonically as the cabaret-singing-sisters emoji: “👯♀️👯♀️👯♀️.”
This matching-outfits stunt included, Corenswet and Hoult seem to be leaning into a playful (if not gently flirtatious) dynamic while carrying out their contractual Superman press. On Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Hoult recounted a story about asking Corenswet to hold him.
“I was chatting to my wife one night, and she was like, ‘It’s so nice to be held by someone bigger than you. You don’t really get that, do you?’ And I was like, ‘No, I guess I don’t,’” said Hoult, who is six foot two. “She was like, ‘Yeah, no one’s really big enough to hold you, [but] David could hold you.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, he probably could.’”
Hoult confirmed to the hosts that he did, indeed, ask six-four Corenswet for an embrace: “Yeah, he held me. And it felt warm and safe,” he said, laughing.
Surely, this wouldn’t be the first time that homosocial flirtation has proved to be an effective marketing tool for a superhero movie. On X, the writer Rose Dommu wrote, “You have to respect [Hoult’s] wife for fujoshing so elegantly,” referring to the manga-adjacent practice of shipping relationships between men. Keep on twinning, fellas; based on the response, it seems to be the internet’s kryptonite.
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