For all the Superman movies that exist, there are just about twice as many versions of the iconic superhero that didn’t make it to the big screen. Perhaps the most famous of the bunch is Tim Burton’s Superman movie, which would have starred Nicolas Cage. But there was another notable project that never got off the ground, with Jude Law briefly attached to play the Kryptonian hero. There are a few reasons why that movie didn’t move forward, but for his part, Law explains what made him change his mind about taking on the famous role.

Back before Superman Returns came to be, there was another project in the works with Brett Ratner set to direct from a script by J.J. Abrams. Titled Flyby, Jude Law was being considered to play the Son of Krypton before he passed on the part. Last night, the actor appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (via JoBlo), where he opened up about why he decided not to take the role, which had a little something to do with him being British, but much more to do with the actual costume:

First of all, I’m an Englishman and I felt like, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem to fit, and I was always worried about the outfit and I just didn’t fancy it. This director was very keen to meet and impress it upon me and I was actually out in California and he said, ‘Look, you just have to try the suit on. The suit’s amazing, and we’ve revamped the suit,’ and I was like, ‘Okay, send the suit over.'

Law went on to describe his humorous experience trying on the suit for the first time:

So I take the suit into the bathroom and I’m putting it on and then I look round, I’m in the mirror and suddenly…I’m Superman, right. And the music kinda comes in like da, da, dada duh duh, right, I stood there and then I had this picture of me in that costume on posters all over the world and I was like…’no way’ and I unzipped it. But I was Superman for two minutes, that’s enough.

You can watch the full clip from Law’s appearance on The Late Show below:

He definitely would have been an unexpected choice for the role of the classic American superhero, but Flyby ultimately never made it into production. Instead, Bryan Singer made Superman Returns with Brandon Routh in 2006 before Zack Snyder rebooted the character yet again with Henry Cavill in Man of Steel.

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