He founded the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation (which researches treatments for paralysis caused by spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders) and co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center. Reeve passed in 2004 at age 52.

QUESTION:
You're doing a play in Los Angeles at the moment?

CHRISTOPHER REEVE:
Yes, we just finished a Sunday matinee. It makes for a nice break, because you're done by five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. You don't have to come back until the Tuesday evening performance. There's enough time to enjoy California. I've been going to Tahoe to go skiing. I'm planning to go diving in Catalina. I go down to a ranch near San Diego to ride.

QUESTION:
Where are you based now?

REEVE:
I live in New York and also in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I built a house there in 1986. And I feel really that I live in Williamstown now. It's about two-and-a-half hours from New York.

QUESTION:
How did you find that spot?

REEVE:
I started working at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, when I was a teenager, as an apprentice. And then starting with the 1980 season, I kept coming back every summer to do a play. I just loved it so much. I just got more and more involved in the community, got to know more people. And finally, I thought, "I'd really like to live here." So I designed a house and bought the land and went the whole route.

QUESTION:
How did you come to do the play "Summer and Smoke"?

REEVE:
What happened was, the Ahmanson Theatre, Robert Fryer, the artistic director, called up and said that they had a sudden cancellation, an open slot. And we'd been talking for a number of years about possibly doing a play out here. And Mark Harmon was supposed to do "Bus Stop." At the last minute, he had to drop out, because he needed shoulder surgery. So they called up and said, "Think of a play, quick."

It was like Friday noon. They said, "By Monday we've got to tell the press something." So I spent the weekend in the library, reading. I didn't have in my pocket, that sort of dream vehicle -- "This is my chance to play X," and have a list in my pocket. I had thought maybe that "Summer and Smoke" would be a great chance for a partnership with an actress that maybe I would love to work with, because it's really a two-hander. And it's an ensemble kind of piece.

And I got a big pleasure and challenge out of working with really good people in another role, when I did "Fifth of July" on Broadway, I was technically above the title, but really it was the play and the ensemble and Swoosie Kurtz and Jeff Daniels and all of us were together. I like that feeling. It takes the pressure off a little bit.

So really, what I was looking for was -- what's a play that I can be well cast in and have a chance to work with a great actress? And I thought of "Summer and Smoke." We scrambled to try and get it together very quickly. And we were very fortunate to get Christine Lahti. I've been a big fan of hers for a long time. She's an actress that the industry really knows more about than the public does. I hope that that changes soon. She deserves a big break. "Housekeeping" was a good break for her. Maybe this new Lumet film that she just made ["Running on Empty"] will be the one that will really put her over with the public at large. She's a really fabulous actress.

QUESTION:
Is "Superman IV" the last in the series?

REEVE:
Gee, I hate to form a post-mortem. I guess, honestly, what feel about it is that it will probably be the end of if, if they aren't better produced. It's clear that for the $6 or $7 that the audience has to pay, they really demand first-rate quality. And I guess, really the problem is that the 1977 dollars that were needed to put "Superman" on the screen with such a high quality won't go very far in 1987.

Just as an example, the whole first movie was pegged to the credibility of a man in flight. Literally, the poster said, "You'll believe a man can fly." And that was big news. And it was done in a very credible way. It allowed me to play the part in a very off-handed fashion, because we were able to show some spectacular events -- a man really catching a helicopter or really repairing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Whereas, back in the TV series, they had to say, "Up, up and away," because they really couldn't go up, up and away. And we had the technology to do that. And I'm very grateful for that. And, as I say, I was able to play the part in a casual, self-deprecating way, because a man who really can do these things doesn't need to be a braggart or doesn't need to pose.

The problem in "Superman IV" is -- They wanted to make a good movie. No one intends to make a bad movie -- But I think they underestimated the need for quality. An example of a scene that changed, between what we wrote -- Larry Konner, Mark Rosenthal and I -- we envisioned a scene where Superman, having decided to rid the world of nuclear weapons, would land on 42nd Street and walk down the street to the United Nations.

And I envisioned -- this was my idea -- envisioned that we would buy 42nd Street for a day or two or three. We'd block it off. We'd have people pouring out of buildings. We'd tie up buses, traffic. You'd see the United Nations at the end of the street there. And people would follow him down the street like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. He'd go in the building and you'd really see this incredible event. It should have been, I would have thought, an incredible event. I actually got the idea from watching Jimmy Carter get out of his motorcade, when he was inaugurated. I remember misting up at that idea, of him walking down the street.

Anyway, jump cut to the actual production. The United Nations was the Wembley Conference Center in England. 42nd Street was a little shopping plaza in Milton Keynes in the Midlands with a box of pigeons thrown in the middle of the sidewalk to try to make a street feeling. See, you can't do that and expect the magic to work.

QUESTION:
Had you felt that you would have more control over the result, by co-writing the script?

REEVE:
Well, working on the script has nothing to do with working on production. You can write all day, but if they don't produce what you wrote, then you can't have the movie you envisioned.

I said I would do it, if I could have a lot of input into the direction of the story. And I made an assumption that they would literally produce what we'd worked out on the page. And that's where it went wrong. It was on the page, was all I can say.

QUESTION:
Does it worry you that audiences might be hesitant to see you as something other than Superman?

REEVE:
I don't know how to tell you this, except to say that, I keep forgetting that I ever played Superman. I literally just forget that, because I carry on. I live my life. I do movies. I do theatre. And because "Superman" was a very important event in my life, but it wasn't a before-and-after kind of thing. It was just another in a series of very rewarding jobs. It's ancient history to me. So I constantly forget about, "Gee, maybe people are going to think I'm Superman." I absolutely forget about it.

QUESTION:
Don't you get stopped all the time in the street by fans who fondly associate you with Superman?

REEVE:
No, no. Absolutely not. I often get stopped in the street and people say "Somewhere in Time" or "Deathtrap" or "The Bostonians." People say, "Gee, 'Somewhere in Time' I watch every Valentine's Day. Or I saw you in "The Fifth of July" [on Broadway]. Like any other actor.

Even if they say that "Superman" was their favorite or their kids watch it every two minutes on video and stuff, it's still like the way you feel about high school or college or your first job or whatever. It takes its place, as time moves on. And it doesn't stay present like that, the way that you imagine.

QUESTION:
Did you ponder the tragic effects that playing TV's "Superman" had on George Reeves, his life and career, as he found it impossible to escape stereotyping?

REEVE:
My analysis of that is that I just live in a different time and have different ambitions than George Reeves. I think George Reeves came along at the height of the studio system, late 40s, early 50s, when all actors were used by the studios in generic ways. There were ingenues; there were character actors; there were villains; there were leading men; and there were tank-top heroes, people that you found in swimming pools or Olympic competitions and put into movies. You couldn't move out of those kind of characterizations, whether you played Superman or not.

In the 80s, an actor is much more independent, has much more experience, has usually a stage background or a university background, drama school background. He's interested in classical theatre; is a business man in his own right; has no allegiance to a studio.

And the audience is very sophisticated now, because they've seen so many performances. They can watch things over and over again on video. They demand a much higher level of specific character work in every part you play. And they, in fact, in my opinion, look forward to seeing an actor change, from one movie to another.

You used to go to see Jimmy Cagney always be Jimmy Cagney. Or Bogie always be Bogie. You go to see William Hurt or Meryl Streep or Kevin Klein be different. And you totally accept that, say, Meryl Streep was Polish in one movie and Dutch in another movie. You totally get into it.

So I was able to take advantage of that fact. I assumed that people would see Superman as one performance and then I'd be free to go on to another performance. And basically, that's what's happening.

QUESTION:
Did you ever view "Superman" as the kind of franchise, like James Bond, that could go on almost forever?

REEVE:
I think "Superman" goes on with or without me. I do not think that I'm indispensable, by any means.

QUESTION:
Early on, did you envision continuing longer as the character?

REEVE:
No, I saw myself doing three or four movies. In fact, the original deal was three movies and then, I went on to do this other one with, as we talked about, all these promises about, "We're really going to get the quality back." I go to a lot of movies, too. I don't want to sit there and be ripped-off. I know what it's like to sit there and watch a bad sequel. I really feel for people that have to.

I'd want to really, really have high intentions about it. And I wouldn't want to do another "Superman" movie again unless some brilliant idea came along, some amazing thing we could do that would knock people's socks off. If something like that came along, I'm still young enough to play the part. I'd happily do it.

QUESTION:
Do you think that the fourth one hurt you at all?

REEVE:
Yeah, I think "IV" being a flop did not help my career, at all.

QUESTION:
Do you know what your next project will be?

REEVE:
The next thing I'm going to do is a continuation, it's actually for television, it's a special mini-series for NBC. It's the second time I've worked on TV. The first time was "Anna Karenina," a couple of years ago. But this is a continuation of the story "The Great Escape." ["The Great Escape II: The Untold Story"]

It's the true story of how a small handful of the survivors -- 76 of the prisoners escaped and 50 of them were executed by the Gestapo -- of the 26 that survived, a small group of them went after the Gestapo responsible for the executions. In fact, they brought 16 of them to justice. And I'm playing the leader of the group. His name is John Bigelow Dodge.

QUESTION:
Is the Steve McQueen character in this one?

REEVE:
McQueen's character was fictional. His character didn't actually exist. That was done for movie packaging purposes. But this is a real person, John Bigelow Dodge, who was born in the States, went to St. Marks, and then he went to McGill, traveled the world, and then he became an English citizen, in the 20s. In fact, he ran for public office. He was a very big man. I actually, physically, look like him. He'd be a good subject for his own movie, "The John Dodge Story." So I'm going to try to play him as close as I possibly can.

QUESTION:
What drew you to "Switching Channels"?

REEVE:
Just for fun. As we all said on the first day of production -- "Just for fun." It was a romp and we had a good time. Blaine [his character] is such a dork. And he's so self-important. I think we'd all say, in candor, that he's a pompous ass. And that was fun to do. I enjoyed it. I worked really hard to be unbearable.

I remember, in the original movie, the Ralph Bellamy character, who I'm basically playing, is sort of bland. He wears grey suits. And there's this thing about his mother. He was very Clark Kent-ish in a way. So why would somebody as terrific as Rosalind Russell keep him around?

And so the adjustment that we made Ted Kotcheff [the "Switching Channels" director] and I together came up with the idea of making Blaine very horny. He's just always ready for action. And that sort of justifies it. He's just always ready to jump on her bones. So maybe you can understand a little more why she's attracted to him. When she first meets him, you think he's Mr. Terrific. You think, "Oh, she's found the right guy." But then the more he opens his mouth, the worse it gets.

QUESTION:
Katherine Turner has sometimes been depicted as difficult to work with. What was your experience like with her?

REEVE:
She's a total joy. A total joy. And I think that she is supremely talented, as a comedienne, as a dramatic actress. She's a really fun scene partner and human being. I really admire her. I think that she inherits the mantle from some of the great female stars of the 30s and 40s.

QUESTION:
Michael Caine was originally cast in the Cary Grant role in "Switching Channels," but couldn't play it because of delays on "Jaws: The Revenge." Was it difficult to adapt, when Burt Reynolds took over the part at the last minute?

REEVE:
I'd never been faced with that situation before. We'd shot two weeks of the film thinking that Michael Caine was coming any day. But I feel that Burt did an amazingly smooth job of jumping into a difficult situation. And he showed a lot of grace under pressure. He worked really hard. He made the part very different than Michael Caine would have. It was a pleasure to work with him.

QUESTION:
Burt had said that "Switching Channels" was important to him, because he needed a comeback picture. Were you aware of that feeling, that pressure when he began shooting?

REEVE:
No, that kind of thing, people don't generally say, while they're shooting. There's enough pressure already on. It's like not reading reviews while doing a play. Nobody likes to talk about what it all means. Later on, we can talk about what it all meant. But in the fray, in the middle of doing it, everyone's just focusing on the scene we're doing now and what we're going to do tomorrow.

QUESTION:
What sort of pressure do you feel, when you are shooting?

REEVE:
The main pressure, I feel, is that you have to commit a performance... It's like opening night every day, when you shoot. And you have to commit something to film, which is a permanent record. And it may or may not be at its peak, when it's shot. And generally a film is a collection of its most inspired moments. A really great film has more inspired moments than a lesser film.

So I think films where you don't rehearse are, for me, the hardest. I like rehearsal and I feel that the more I do something, the better it gets, because I keep turning things over and looking at it from different angles. I try a lot of different things. And you have to get some of them out of your system. But sometimes, as on "Switching Channels," you do not have the opportunity to rehearse at all. We just showed up and did it. So you have to commit to things and hope that it's all going to hang together.

QUESTION:
Were you disappointed with the way "Monsignor" [1982] turned out?

REEVE:
I feel that, with more work, "Monsignor" could have done well. I feel there was a better movie in there, trying to get out. What happened was, they cut it pretty quickly and released it without a preview, or any testing of any kind.

And by reshaping the scenes, in fact, Frank Perry [director] and I sat in the cutting room for a month, later, and I was perplexed as to why such a good script and such a good cast [Geneviève Bujold, Fernando Rey, Jason Miller] had gone down the drain. So we actually cut the picture and came up with something that was dramatically better, much, much, much better. I've got it on a cassette. But it would cost too much for Fox to release it or whatever. That was a case of not enough time given in post-production to testing the movie.

A lot of things, in retrospect, could have been improved. That was a very humbling experience. It was a real slap in the face, because it was promoted -- and of course, I had nothing to do with the promotion -- it was promoted with such fanfare. There were three-page ads in the New York Times. The premiere was at the Ziegfeld Theatre, which is something like 1,600 seats. Sometimes a studio will take a picture that really isn't very good and they'll try to stuff it down the public's throat by making an enormous splash out of it. And I just think it deserved a better deal than that.

QUESTION:
Though it wasn't a big commercial hit, you received strong reviews for "Street Smart" [1987 thriller with Reeve, Morgan Freeman, Kathy Baker, directed by Jerry Schatzberg]. Were you satisfied with that picture?

REEVE:
'I think "Street Smart" is a very good movie. I feel that the problem here was not enough promotion. Back when it was running for a couple of weeks, you couldn't even find an ad for it in New York, a newspaper ad. Many people I know wanted to see the movie and said, "What happened? It came and it went."

I think that it may have been disconcerting for some people to see me play somebody who is outwardly attractive and appealing, but is inwardly completely corrupt, ruthless and immoral... and very much a weakling. It just may have been a problem for people to see me in that kind of a role. And I accept that. It's difficult,

In "Switching Channels," at least in playing Blaine, I'm clearly set up as being an idiot and you can clearly laugh at this character. It's a bit more disconcerting with Jonathan Fisher [the "Street Smart" character], because it was fairly close to an actual Yuppie journalist type, the kind you see in New York all the time, the smarmy, ingratiating, smooth, attractive kind of guy who is basically talentless and corrupt. I think it makes people uncomfortable to see me play that kind of part.

QUESTION:
So how do you balance wanting to expand your range as an actor, while having to deal with what the audience will accept?

REEVE:
Well, you can choose what you want to worry about [laughs], like anything else. I just pick the best role. I pick the role that interests me or that I think I'll have fun doing and then I try to shut my eyes and just forget about the consequences.

But I do realize that it's hard for the public to take somebody who looks -- I mean, I'm physically big. I have this sort of -- They used to call me "Chisel Chops" in high school. I had this very square face. And, not wanting to sound self-important, but I kind of look like a leading man type. And if I'm playing against that, it can be kind of difficult to follow, unless it's really clear what I'm doing.

QUESTION:
Last year, you journeyed to Santiago, Chile to demonstrate on behalf of the 77 actors threatened with execution by the Pinochet regime. What prompted you to take that risk?

REEVE:
Well, I was contacted by [author] Ariel Dorfman, who is a Chilean exile, teaching at Duke University. The situation, just a quick recap, a group of 77 actors from nine theatre companies had been threatened with execution if they didn't leave Chile by the 30th of November. And this threat came from a death squad, which is known to be an extremist, right-wing faction of the Pinochet regime.

And this appeal from Ariel Dorfman was for internationally known celebrities, from different countries, to go down there and to try to focus worldwide media attention on the actors. Because the Pinochet regime specifically tries to maintain a good image and good standing with Washington in terms of credit rating, loans, in terms of various forms of aid that they hope for, because of that, no harm would come to an American actor. And perhaps no harm would come to the Chilean actors, while an American actor was down there among them. That was the theory.

He contacted me. He contacted Meryl Streep, who was busy shooting in Australia. And Martin Sheen, who was doing something else. It sort of came to me. I really wasn't doing anything. I couldn't think of anything really pressing that I was doing on November 30th that was more important.

QUESTION:
What was the result?

REEVE:
This tactic, at least temporarily, was effective. The threats have stopped. No one left the country and no one was executed. And the Pinochet government had to come out with a statement that these actors were safe and that they were offering official protection to these actors. Pinochet himself publicly made a joke, saying, "The only reason an actor would be executed is because he's such a lousy actor." That was taken by observers there as being as close to a pulling back, a retraction, as he could possibly make, and still save face.

Since that time, there have been renewed attacks on one particular actress. Her house has been attacked in the middle of the night and she has been threatened with death. And so we're mobilizing again -- letters to the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of the Exterior, to the State Department, to Americas Watch, to Amnesty International, to let this terrorist group know that the world is watching.

And when I was down there, I went to an open-air rally on November 30th, the day when they were supposed to leave the country. There was a rally to show solidarity. And at this rally, there were German, Spanish, Argentinian delegations. There were telegrams from the English, led by Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Bates and Julie Christie and Sir Laurence Olivier. I went on a human rights basis, not a political basis. I'm on the council of Actors Equity. So I brought the support and the solidarity of the 38,000 members of Actors Equity, to show support for their Chilean actors union.

Having all of that behind me, and being able to actually use Superman as a kind of a gimmick -- because, of course, they know me as Superman down there. In fact, one magazine ran a cartoon showing Superman taking Pinochet and flying him off into the wild, blue yonder. And the caption said, "Where are you going to take him, Superman?" So the persona that I brought, I think this was a healthy use of Superman. Okay, it's kind of an over-the-top cartoon image, but at least for those purposes, it got the attention of the media and it allowed me to speak out about a very real problem.

Within a day or two of my being there, they stopped referring to me as Superman. They dropped that whole angle. I don't care. In terms of self-image, I don't care what they call me, if I can be effective in an action like that.

QUESTION:
Have you been able to use the Superman image in other positive contexts?

REEVE:
I have. In many, many, many, many, many ways. I have. For example, I was recently contacted by a network that's going to do a 50th anniversary tribute to Superman. And they wanted me to do some sort of funny stuff about Superman. I think it's going to be a Loren Michaels produced show. And so it's going to be pretty silly, I guess.

And I had to tell them honestly, I said, "Look, I really do think I've got a sense of humor and always have, but in my experience over the last 10 years, I have repeatedly seen how much Superman means to people from all walks of life. And it almost has a spiritual kind of quality to it. And I can't just come out and poke fun at it. I can't just come out and do silly gags for you.

What I mean by this is that I have been contacted by so many parents of terminally ill children over the years, children with brain tumors, cancer and all kinds of deformities and terminal illnesses of every kind, who really feel that Superman is a source of inner strength for them. It is something they can believe, which literally allows them to face the end. And many times, there's been requests, that all they want to do before they die is meet me. And I can't laugh at that.

When I first became aware of this kind of thing was back in the late 70s. And I thought, "Wait a minute. They don't want to meet me, because I'm going to show up in blue jeans and I don't have the black hair. And they're going to get confused." No. Because Superman in a way, is like a symbol. It stands for friendship. It stands for courage. It stands for integrity. It stands for facing adversity. It stands for hope, possibility, change, all of those things.

And in a way, I've sort of been like an ambassador, using Superman as a reference, using Superman as a way to talk about things. And I've been at the bedside of a lot of dying children. And I just can't take it as a joke anymore.

QUESTION:
What has it meant to your own kids, having their daddy be Superman?

REEVE:
Like all kids, they have watched the "Superman" videos. But after a while, it's really old news. And they go on to other things. There's so many different things. I think they're probably a little tired of it. And the kids at school never refer to it. Again, it's just very old news. Except that they loved being in the movie. Both of them were in "Part IV," in little bits. And they really enjoyed that.

I directed one of the sequences. In the film, there's a fight on the moon between Superman and the bad guy. And I directed that sequence. And my son Matthew loved to come down to the stage and play on the big rocks and play on the moon. That was a lot of fun. He'd bring his friends from school and go play on the moon.

QUESTION:
The responsibility of being a role model, when you're playing Superman does that ever get to be a wearying burden?

REEVE:
No, because whoever plays the part next will take over the burden. It's only been 10 years. And it hasn't been that heavy. It's interspersed with other things. I don't feel it on a daily basis, is what I'm saying. It's a part of my life and a part that fits in very nicely now. I don't feel that it's a burden. I don't feel that it's something that's oppressive to me at all. I'm very glad that it still means something to people.

For more information on the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, visit https://www.christopherreeve.org.