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KRYPTON’s Stars Joined Us to Talk About Syfy’s New SUPERMAN Prequel Series

Everyone knows about the events that led to Superman arriving on our world, but when it comes to the history of his home planet we’re mostly in the darkseid. That’s why we’re so excited for Syfy‘s upcoming prequel series Krypton, which will explore Kal-El’s family and homeland in ways we’ve never seen before. But because we couldn’t wait for it to crash land on our TVs, we invited the show’s stars onto today’s Nerdist News Talks Back for a very special episode.

Super excited guest host Amy Vorpahl and Alpha‘s Hector Navarro welcomed Cameron Cuffe and Georgina Campbell to today’s show to learn all about their new series that is set 200 years before the Man of Steel arrives on Earth. We wanted to know all about Cameron’s Superman ancestor Seg-El, who he says we meet “at his lowest,” and Georgina’s Lyta Zod, whose descendant General Zod will one day threaten Earth, even though she has more of a “humanist” side to her than we might expect from her family. Although we might be even more intrigued about why they think their characters relationship goed beyond “flirtation.”

Cameron also explained how “the violence on the show is character based,” which required him to do lots of MMA and boxing training even if Seg-El gets beat up, and why that meant Georgina had to focus on martial arts training. But did they feel pressure taking on such a beloved comic book franchise? Was that harder on “massive DC nerd” Cameron (and he wasn’t kidding about that), who says “no one would be harsher on this than me?” Or Georgina, who Amy might have freaked out about upsetting diehard fans? And why did Cameron say the look of the show was influenced by Star Wars and Blade Runner?

We also wanted to know about the pressure they feel adding to the mythology of such a famous character? (“I feel that you can see the love in the show on every level because this was made by really passionate people.”) How did they create the “perfect” Krypton by pulling from all the different iterations of Superman? What does the show take from Richard Donner’s films? What about the comics? And what kind of musical Easter eggs might we hear?

The show also includes Adam Strange and time travel, but how exactly does that mean they’re “not making a prequel?” (“You think you know where it’s going, but I think through the story and through the episodes you do start to wonder if you know where it’s going.”) Could we even see Superman show up? (“His presence is very much felt on the show, he’s the most important off-screen character.”) And besides Brainiac, should we expect any other villains to arrive this season? Does it matter on a show that doesn’t have clear heroes and villains? And why did Cameron mention Doomsday?

Of course, we also had some fun, less serious (yet somehow they were the most serious) questions, like which Superman ability would they most want to have? (We’re going to speak to Hector about his strange response don’t worry). What is their personal kryptonite? And what other sci-fi universes would they also love to visit? (Give us the Krypton/Buffy crossover we deserve!)

Don’t forget Nerdist News Talks Back airs every live on our YouTube and Alpha channels Monday through Thursday at 1 p.m. PT, and we wrap up the week with our new hour-long Nerdist News What the Fridays at 1 p.m. PT, exclusively at Alpha. Tune in live every day so you can be a part of our conversation, because you never know who will show up from Krypton–or Krypton–and you can’t fly against the Earth’s rotation and go back in time if you miss them.

After today’s show what are you most excited about for this Superman prequel? Fly into our comments below to let us know.

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