Sydney
June 19-21, 2026
Sydney Showground Olympic Park
Three different eras of the superhero talent helped open Supanova Brisbane, with Ryan Potter, Manu Bennett and Dean “Why Don’t You Just Call Me Grandpa?” Cain doing a deep dive into the DC Universe at Cosplay Theatre on Friday night.
Superman on TV? Yeah, right!
Dean: “At the time, there were no superhero shows, so everyone was like, ‘Superman… that’s not gonna work.’ There was a lot of trepidation about that and everyone was concerned. I read the script and it was about Clark Kent and I thought, ‘This is great, I like it.’”
Comic binge
Ryan: “I grew up with manga, and those are essentially Japanese comics. When I moved to the States, there were a few graphic novels I got into, but I didn’t read comics as a whole. When I got the [Titans] role, I bought every comic possible that related to Beast Boy and I did a deep dive.”
A violent audition
Manu: “I ended up getting the guy who was the reader in a chokehold, and as I was doing my audition, he passed out.”
Dean: “After he choked out the kid, Manu turned to the casting director and said, ‘I’ll choke you out next if you don’t cast me.’”
An airport schooling on Deathstroke
Manu: “I was in the [Vancouvour] immigration line and my agent rang as she said, ‘Manu, you’ve just been announced in Variety as Slade Wilson.’ I was reading it allowed and said, ‘Slade Wilson? Deathstroke? Who’s that?’ And the guy behind the counter in immigration went, ‘You’re playing Deathstroke? Deathstroke’s like a bada*se in the DC Comic universe!'”
Kissing booth Cain
Dean: “The [Lois Lane] audition was when Lois comes to the door and immediately kisses Clark on the mouth and tries to seduce him. [We tried] 10 different Lois Lane’s in the row…”
Manu: “You love that story.”
Acting inspiration
Ryan: “I started acting because they pay me to simply be my crazy self, and it’s fun and it’s brilliant. Every day is a new challenge, a new emotion, a new setting, a new character and it keeps things fun.”
Pic by Ewan Ly
The power of storytelling
Manu: “The division on this planet is so wrong and these stories help us understand things.”
Ryan: “Storytelling is so important because when you tell universal stories of what it means to be human, regardless of age, gender, creed, race you can identify with certain truths.”
Why so serious?
Dean: “If you can’t make fun of yourself, that’s going to be a problem, so I make fun of myself. If you don’t make fun of yourself, someone else will and it’s going to hurt badly.”
Superman support
Dean: “When I played Superman, I played the version that Christopher Reeve played – that was my superman, so I sort of pretended I was Christopher Reeve doing that, then Clark was the character. I never had the opportunity to meet Christopher Reeve and that’s one of the things that I regret.”
What Supa-Stars get up to on a Thursday night
Manu: “There’s a Walt Disney version of Cards Against Humanity and you’ve got to get this box; it’s so funny. You’ve never heard [these] things said about Cinderella. Disney must just be sending lawsuits at this stage.
Fanmail
Dean: “Back in the day when we were doing the show, I used to get the strangest things sent to me…I finally said at one point in time to a question like this, ‘Well, I haven’t been getting women’s underpants in the mail.’ Guess what I got lots of next… And I’m still wearing them.
Lead image by Bruce Moyle
