David Corenswet’s turn as the Man of Steel in 2025’s Superman was awash in optimism, confidence, and swagger, and his next big screen appearance looks to be no different. In an exclusive interview with IGN, Corenswet reveals that the protagonist of his new movie Mr. Irrelevant, which hits theaters this December, shares a lot in common with the Big Blue Boy Scout.
“John Tuggle is a very Superman-like figure in a lot of ways,” Corenswet says. “I want to watch films that leave me feeling hopeful, optimistic, energetic. When the lights come up in the movie theater, I want to look to the people next to me and say, ‘Wow, we should be a little nicer to each other. We just went through something that brought us together, and I want to leave the theater and call my mom.’”
Mr. Irrelevant tells the true story of John Tuggle, “the last player selected in the last round of the 1983 NFL draft.” The movie stars Corenswet as Tuggle with supporting performances by Michael Shannon (Knives Out, Man of Steel) as legendary football coach Bill Parcells and Isabel May (Scream 7) as Tuggle’s love interest Katie.
Along with Corenswet, I sat down with May, who says playing Katie was a bit of a reprieve from some of her other upcoming roles.
“Of course I want to be a part of films that make people feel good,” May says. “But I also did films after this film that will make people not feel good.”
“I haven't made another film except for a Superman film since this film,” Corenswet adds. “Isabel has made quite a few films and it stretches the gamut. It's a wide range of characters and types of feelings that people are going to walk away from.
“[In one upcoming film] I play a pretty deplorable person,” May says. “But I want to play everyone, every kind of flavor of a person. I'm genuinely so happy to be here and talk about this movie because I'm so proud of it.”
How David Corenswet Prepared to Play John Tuggle
The real Tuggle died of cancer in 1986, and Mr. Irrelevant dives into the story of his health struggles and treatments in addition to his efforts to become successful in the NFL. Corenswet, whose own father died of cancer, says the former storyline was a more difficult and personal challenge for him to navigate as an actor.
“The second half [of the movie] was harder for me because that was all me. The first half is all my football double Jacob who gave and took all of the very hard hits over and over and over. I did a few of [the tackles], but we all knew that once I got worn out that Jacob was going to be the one to see it through to the finish line. [With the cancer scenes], the challenge is small things that you take for granted when you're watching a movie. If you're doing a scene where you're coughing, the scene might be 30 seconds or a minute on screen, but you spend all day coughing as an actor.
“In the same vein, this is the kind of movie where you almost hope that you'll end up with a scar or an injury so that you remember how much everybody gave to it. There's a lot of hard work that went into it all, but I was excited to go to work every single goddamn day on this film.”
David Corenswet and Isabel May Break Down Mr. Irrelevant's Shower Scene
While both Corenswet and May say portraying John’s health struggles was difficult at times, there’s one more lighthearted scene that was the trickiest for them to nail.
“There's only one that I remember,” May says.
“I'm wondering if we're thinking of the same one,” Corenswet adds.
“We probably are,” May says. “There's a scene where I'm taking a shower and David was having a really justifiably difficult time trying to figure out how not to be creepy and go in and someone's showering and bother them and make it feel romantic. But also still, if he didn't go in the shower, it wasn't as fun. So we were trying to figure out how to make that work.”
“That's the story I tell when I try to explain to people how good you were to have on set,” Corenswet says. “We had discussions about blocking but once we were up, we were trying to problem solve. [Director] Jonathan [Levine] said to me, ‘Is this the scene where it's all going to fall apart and we're not going to make the movie because you can't figure out how to walk in and not go over to the shower, but you have to go over to the shower?’
“We essentially got to the point where Jonathan and I said to each other, ‘We don't know how to do this.’ Isabel just piped in from the shower, ‘What if I don't open the curtain?’ And that immediately solved everything.”
While neither May nor Corenswet spoke with John Tuggle’s family while making the movie, they reveal that both Katie (to whom Tuggle would become engaged before his death) and people close to Tuggle have seen the film.
How John Tuggle's Family Reacted to Mr. Irrelevant
“I didn't get to meet Katie,” May says. “All I know is that she really, really loved him. She never remarried and that she stayed close to this family and was willing to have these conversations with people all these years later about this guy and was very supportive of us making this movie. Our producers showed the film to his sister and his family and to Katie, and they all said it felt like they were actually watching John. They got to see him again. So David tapped into something extraordinary.”
“[Katie] said that it was absolutely in the spirit of John and in the spirit of what happened,” Corenswet says. “And for a movie like this about a man who is not a household name, the point is that the spirit of it is true. This was a guy who made everybody else around him feel that there was more to be done and that there was a reason to smile and a reason to laugh, a reason to hope, a reason to get back up and keep fighting.”
As to whether the movie will bring more attention to John Tuggle’s life and on-field accomplishments, Corenswet says that he hopes it does more than that.
“We can all get on board with a Mr. Irrelevant movie about [someone like San Francisco 49ers quarterback] Brock Purdy,” Corenswet says. “About the guy who's picked last, who ended up being the star, the winner, the unlikely hero, the one whose name everybody knows and the story everybody knows. There’s an element to that when John starts his story. But what he learns and what most of us learn, and probably even the people who end up in the record books learn, is that the greatest impact an individual has on the world is not in the record books and it's not on the trophies in the glass cases. It’s on the people who you interact with and inspire.”
Mr. Irrelevant premieres in theaters December 25.