Family opens up on emotional new movie about Christopher Reeve

Matthew Reeve remembers how he found out that his superhero dad might never walk again. “I learned a lot when we got to the airport,” said the 44-year-old son of Superman star Christopher Reeve.

“We were in London and dad was in hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. There was a wave of photographers there who wanted to get their shot and that spoke volumes. It had already made the papers, and I could see all the headlines in the airport. ‘Might be paralysed. Might die.’

“I learned a lot about what had happened from that. But we were just putting one foot in front of the other.”

Matthew and Will Reeve, back, with sister Alexandra and the filmmakers.

There is a twisted irony that the son of one of cinema’s most famous newspapermen would learn of his father’s desperate fate from passing the newsstands. What 15-year-old Reeve saw on the headlines in May 1995 was framed as one of Hollywood’s biggest tragedies – the day the Man of Steel was thrown from a horse, breaking his neck and becoming a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic.

Now a moving new film about Reeve reframes the American actor’s life and legacy, revealing how his determination to overcome the ultimate adversity has left an impact that endures well beyond his fantasy triumphs in the red cape and blue tights in four movies alongside Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder.

The Christopher Reeve story

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story follows the young Reeve from his days as a hopeful theatre actor through his triumphant debut as the last son of Krypton, in films which remain the high water mark for today’s hugely popular super-hero genre.

It also features poignant footage from his family’s home movie collection, both before and after his accident, with heartfelt contributions from the likes of Reeve’s co-stars Whoopi Goldberg, Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon.

It also reveals the special bond between the actor and his college friend Robin Williams, who turned up at hospital after Reeve’s accident pretending to be a Russian doctor.

For the star’s three children – Alexandra and Matthew, from his relationship with British modelling executive Gae Exton, and son Will who he had with wife Dana Reeve – the film offers a rare perspective on the span of their father’s entire life, on the 20th anniversary of his death, aged 52.

Reeve’s son Will, 32, was only two when his father suffered his accident, living for nine years in a wheelchair. Devastatingly, Will’s mother died, aged 44, 17 months after his dad.

He said: “I welcome any moment that I get to spend with my parents in any form. Thinking about them, talking about them, seeing them on screen. This whole process has been a series of moments and revisitations to a time that I had missed.

“In a way it has brought them back into all of our lives in a meaningful way. I lost them young, but in the short time I had with my parents we couldn’t have been any closer.”

For sister Alexandra, 40, the experience was cathartic.

She said: “Anyone who has lost a parent knows what that is. It’s sad but also a gift to see his life wrapped up like this.

“It has been a gift to pause, to look back and reflect. It was a life well lived, and it wasn’t perfect by any measure. It had highs and lows, but he lived life to the fullest and left an incredible legacy behind. And that’s rewarding.”

Matthew added: “It expanded my knowledge of who he was, seeing interviews with him that we didn’t know existed. We had been approached about doing a dramatisation of his story but we weren’t really into that idea.

“With the documentary idea, we felt enough time had passed where people who did remember him might have forgotten part of his story. We wanted to bring that back for them but also for a generation who maybe didn’t know.

“What the filmmakers have made is a piece of art. It’s phenomenal. You get goosebumps even from the first music cue in the trailer, let alone the film. We lived the story, and although it was a long time ago, those emotions and memories are fresh.

“But it also brings back an overwhelming feeling of happiness. We had so much laughter in our house growing up and we were so lucky that we got to have the time that we did with our dad, even after his accident because he very well might not have survived it. There’s so much to be grateful for.”

The film

The film, released next weekend, illuminates the impact of Reeve’s tireless advocacy for people living with spinal cord injuries, through the work of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Before the actor’s death from a heart attack following an infection in 2004, he had defied medical science by breathing unaided off his ventilator, moving his fingers and even taking steps in a swimming pool.

Matthew said: “Going into a pool with a big hole in your neck for a ventilator takes a lot of courage, and he did it.

“He actually took a couple of steps on his own in the pool. That was a huge moment, it gave him so much encouragement that recovery was possible.”

Remarkably, Reeve managed to recover elements of his career after his paralysis, starring in a remake of Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window and working as a director.

He also had a cameo in Superman TV spin-off Smallville with Tom Welling.

“A lot of what my dad was involved in was experimental research, and so much of that is standard protocol now,” said Matthew. “I met a guy recently who was paralysed and after doing a lot of physical therapy he was up walking again.

“What my dad did for the community of people with spinal cord injuries represented a seismic shift. It wouldn’t be where it is today without the work he and Dana did.”

Alexandra and Matthew filmed small parts with their father for Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, and their brother Will has a cameo in next year’s Superman reboot starring David Corenswet.

‘The film does justice to our dad’s legacy’

For all three siblings, the documentary offers a chance for them to see their father back in cinemas.

Will said: “That was important to us and the filmmakers. It’s a cinematic story and it needed to be shared in venues that reflect that. It has an incredible music score and great imagery and it’s really worth seeing in the format Dad loved so very much.”

Alexandra added: “So many people are telling us how they’ve seen parts of their own story in the film. They’ve experienced loss, hardship with a loved one, what it is to be a friend to someone whose circumstances change beyond imagination and how you still show up for people in your life.

“What I love most is that it has that human element to it. Our circumstances were unique and unusual because of Dad’s career and the severity of his accident, but the themes here are universal.

“The film does justice to our dad’s legacy by showing so many dimensions of him and his life.”

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is on general release in cinemas from this week