At a recent Q&A for his latest cinematic contribution Unfinished Song, veteran thespian Terence Stamp, best known to Superman fans as both the original General Zod and, later, the voice of Jor-El in TV's Smallville, recounted an amazing story about a restroom encounter he had just had with a group of moviegoers grumbling about the quality of the new Superman film compared to the original film series.
Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, whose staff writer Scott Feinberg moderated the event:
I spent an hour and a half driving down here from Ojai, and the first thing I wanted to do when I got out was take a leak. I go into the men's bathroom and there's a whole load of guys — obviously, Man of Steel [the Superman reboot] had just turned out. So I take a pee, and I start washing my hands, and there's about 10 or 12 guys there, and they're talking about Man of Steel. And one says, 'Well, I don't know. If they'd have, like, peeled the buildings off the screen I wouldn't have been surprised, you know?' Another says, 'It was all so loud.' Then the guy down at the other end, who was only a little guy, said, 'Yeah, yeah!' And he said, 'It really wasn't as good as the first one, was it?' And I just couldn't resist, and I said, 'You're a very discerning man.' And as soon as they heard the voice they said, [screaming in shock] 'Oh my God! It's General Zod!' I swear to God, it just happened!
Sadly, Stamp passed up a once-in-a-lifetime to order the men to "pee before Zod."
The 74-year-old actor previously called Superman I and II "the very best of all those comic book movies," and said he didn't know if he would see the new film.
"I'm sure it's bigger and better and louder, but I'll be amazed if it has the same kind of ironic humor," he told the Post's Page Six.
[photos via AP]