Matt Bomer has claimed he lost out on the role of a lifetime after being outed as gay.

The US actor – who is known for films like Magic Mike and The Normal Heart, as well as the TV show Fellow Travelers – has said he was in the running for the lead role in DC’s scrapped film Superman: Flyby in the early 2000s.

“It looked like I was the director’s choice for the role,” Matt claimed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, revealing he went as far as signing “a three-picture deal at Warner Bros.” to play the iconic superhero.

However, the film ultimately became one of the several axed Superman films in the hiatus between 1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and 2006’s Superman Returns.

While Matt came out as gay publicly in 2012, he himself is unsure of the exact circumstances around how he was outed earlier in his career, though believes it contributed to him missing out on the role.

Asked whether he believes his sexual orientation affected that outcome, Matt shared: “Yeah, that’s my understanding.”

He continued: “That was a time in the industry when something like that could still really be weaponised against you. How, and why, and who, I don’t know.”

Matt even left his role playing Ben Reade on the CBS soap Guiding Light, which he starred in between 2002 and 2003, for the Superman audition process.

“I went in on a cattle call for Superman, [which] turned into a one-month audition experience where I was auditioning again and again and again,” he said.

The Superman film in question was an early version of a new instalment in the franchise penned by The Force Awakens co-writer and director J.J. Abrams.

Paul Walker, Josh Hartnett and Brendan Fraser were just some of the stars reportedly considered for the new Superman role, before the movie was ultimately shelved.

Matt did eventually lend his voice to Superman in the 2013 animated direct-to-video film Superman: Unbound, along with another recent role voicing The Flash in Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One.

Most recently, the American Horror Story star appeared opposite Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey in the 2023 miniseries Fellow Travelers, which follows two men who fall for each other during a volatile period in America’s history.