Fans of Henry Cavill know that the actor is a force of nature. First of all, he’s Superman. It doesn’t get much more iconic than that. However, Cavill just as effortlessly slips into many different roles, such as Sherlock Holmes in “Enola Holmes” and the upcoming “Enola Holmes 2” films, Geralt of Rivia in the fantastical series “The Witcher,” and Charles Brandon in the period drama “The Tudors,” among many others.
But Cavill himself is something of a character, as well. Classically handsome and charming, the British actor was bullied on the playground as a kid and spends a lot of his free time exploring some surprising hobbies these days (more on all of this below). And while he enjoys the perks of his box office successes, the road to fame was paved with odd jobs and career disappointments.
Still, Cavill’s onscreen performances have solidified his status as a full-blown star, and in October 2022, he announced on Instagram that he would be reprising his role as Superman after five years. “I definitely feel a kinship towards Superman,” he said on “Live with Kelly and Ryan.” In celebration of this Superman’s return, let’s take a look at some facts for Henry Cavill’s super fans.
Henry Cavill didn’t always have a Superman physique
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Henry Cavill just looks like a superhero. With his chiseled jaw, intense blue eyes, and strapping physique, it seems as though he was born to play Superman. But in truth, it took years for Cavill to grow into his more current appearance.
Henry Cavill just looks like a superhero. With his chiseled jaw, intense blue eyes, and strapping physique, it seems as though he was born to play Superman. But in truth, it took years for Cavill to grow into his more current appearance.
“I was a chubby kid,” the star told Men’s Health. “I could’ve very well gone down the route of just accepting my lot in life and being like, ‘I guess I’m not going to do anything.'” His classmates didn’t make things any easier, bullying him and bestowing upon him the nickname “Fat Cavill.” On “The Graham Norton Show” in 2013, Cavill quipped, “[It] was a very apt nickname considering my name was indeed Cavill and I was indeed fat.” He went on to explain, “My dad always said from the age of about 13, I stayed the same weight until I was about 25. I just got taller.”
These days, Cavill stands at 6’1″ and credits playing rugby with helping him slim down and doing school plays for helping him gain confidence. The actor also has a great sense of humor about that difficult period in his life, as it’s clear he’s the one getting the last laugh. Aside from his impressive film and TV career, in 2013, Cavill was voted world’s sexiest man in a poll by Glamour magazine
He grew up with four brothers
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Henry Cavill grew up in Saint Helier, Jersey, a British territory in the Channel Islands. The future actor’s household was rambunctious, to say the least, as he was the second youngest of five boys. As Henry has explained, he and his brothers played rough, taking things to an extreme level. “We were living on the edge of survival most of the time,” he joked on “The Graham Norton Show” in 2021.
The roles Henry Cavill missed out on
Henry Cavill has an enviable showbiz career. He has expertly embodied Superman, Sherlock Holmes, and Geralt of Rivia, among myriad other roles. But Cavill might have had a slightly different career had he landed some of the parts he did not get.
Henry Cavill has an enviable showbiz career. He has expertly embodied Superman, Sherlock Holmes, and Geralt of Rivia, among myriad other roles. But Cavill might have had a slightly different career had he landed some of the parts he did not get.
It was rumored that our favorite Man of Steel was almost cast in “Harry Potter,” which Cavill confirmed in an interview with ABC News. “It was for Cedric Diggory I auditioned, and Robert [Pattinson] got the role, I believe,” Cavill said. Strangely, it would not be the last time Pattinson was chosen over Cavill, as he explained, “[For] ‘Twilight,’ I never got a script or an offer or auditioned or anything like that, but it’s my understanding that the author of the books was keen on me playing the role.” Cavill mused that he was maybe too old to play Edward in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, jokingly telling MTV News, “Stephenie had seen me in whatever jobs I had done previously, and I was probably perfect then. But then, the ravages of time had taken their toll.”
Cavill was also up for the coveted role of James Bond in 2006’s “Casino Royale,” but this time the actor was deemed too young for the part. The studio ultimately went with Daniel Craig as their Bond, of course, a choice Cavill applauds. “I probably wasn’t ready at the time,” Cavill revealed on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in October 2022. “And I think Daniel did an incredible job over the past movies.”
While working as a restaurant host in West Hollywood in 2005, Cavill took on another gig as a dog walker. In a Yahoo! Entertainment article, journalist Giana Mucci recalled a sweet story about Cavill walking her dog, Buddy, and the bond he and the pup shared. Mucci wrote that while she had secretly nicknamed him “Hot Henry” and knew he was an actor, she was unaware of how close Cavill was to making it big. One day, she called future star to see if he could walk Buddy, only to find out Cavill was out of the country, auditioning for “Casino Royale.”
While it seems Cavill was an excellent dog walker, he was not as talented when it came to bartending. Cavill has admitted as much, once saying (via the South China Morning Post), “I worked in a cocktail bar, just off Trafalgar Square. I was awful. I said I could make them to get the job but then when it came down to it, hadn’t a clue.” Luckily, he no longer needs to worry about slinging drinks for a living.
Depending on how you feel about video games, Henry Cavill is either super cool or super dorky because the actor is seriously into gaming. In a conversation with Digital Trends in October 2022, Cavill spoke about his gaming rig: “I think at the moment I’m probably going to go with the AMD chip still, but we’ll see. I’m also waiting for the AMD cards to come out to see what they’re like in comparison to the Nvidia RTX 4090. So time will tell with the specs.” For a non-gamer, this sounds like another language entirely! But one Cavill is clearly fluent in.
One game Cavill is very into is “Warhammer.” So much so that one of his hobbies is painting figurines from the game’s franchise. Cavill spoke on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast about this pastime. “I’ve definitely had people over at my house and very proudly showed them my miniatures, and they’re like, ‘Okay … yeah.’ … And you can just see them thinking, ‘God, get me out of here,'” he quipped.
Cavill also admitted to the podcast’s host, Josh Horowitz, that he sets aside quite a bit of time to play video games. “A fair amount,” he said, before going on to joke, “And when I say a fair amount, that probably means a lot for those who don’t care.”
