Photographs by MARY ELLEN MARK/REBECCA DICKSON/HERB RITTS
Words by MATTHEW REEVE, ALEXANDRA REEVE & WILL REEVE

The children of Superman star Christopher Reeve celebrate his life as a father, actor, director and disability advocate in the wake of his life-changing accident in a new documentary filled with unseen archive footage and recordings. They tell Hollywood Authentic what ‘Dad’ meant to them on and off screen.

Matthew Reeve: We were approached by an archive producer to tell this story, asking if we had home movies, and would we be interested in this type of project – and we had also, coincidentally, had just boxed up our family home. So we knew what we had. We knew where it was. It was consolidated and accessible. We discussed it and we thought it would be a great project to embark on. The timing was kind of right – enough time had passed where [Christopher Reeve’s] story was still relevant. So it’s been really a case of the stars aligning in this lovely way.

Alexandra Reeve: We’ve been approached in the past, often by people wanting to do a narrative feature, and we had worried that that would be just too much through rose-coloured glasses, and would only tell one very specific angle on his and [his wife and Will’s mother] Dana’s life. It felt important that if we were going to tell the story, we were going to tell it authentically and truthfully; in a way that allows you to connect with the man, and understand that there were lows as well as highs, that actually the strength in his life is all the more impressive because of the things that he overcame. When [directors] Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui got attached, it felt like something we could get on board with and participate in fully. We could sit for interviews where we would speak about loss in our family in ways that we’d never spoken about before.

Will Reeve: We said ‘if we do this, we would give all of ourselves’. I think each of us prepared for that moment individually. The night before I knew I was sitting for my interview, I went through a bunch of my mom’s journals. I have family photos all over my apartment anyway, so it wasn’t like I had to dig up too much. I went in prepared to fully and truthfully answer any question that came my way because I wanted it all on record – my experience and feelings. 

Matthew Reeve: Seeing Will and Alexandra’s interviews, and them sharing their thoughts and feelings and memories – they were really the hardest moments and also the most meaningful and rewarding. Certainly we all lived through [Reeve’s horse riding accident, adaptation to paraplegia and death] together but I think when you have someone else asking a question and you’re sharing a perspective with an outsider, you maybe say things you wouldn’t just say in a conversation between siblings.

Will Reeve: We don’t necessarily go back and deconstruct it amongst ourselves because we’re living our full lives. So then to see, all these years later, those experiences through Matthew and Alexandra’s eyes, and for them to see it through my eyes, and realise that we did have that shared experience, but also have different perspectives… We didn’t need this whole process and this project to bring us closer. But it certainly – for me, at least – gave it a more contextualised understanding of their experiences as they’ve related to my experiences. I don’t think in the weeks, months, or years after my mom passed away that I stopped to be like, ‘Hey, guys, just so you know, I wasn’t actually asleep, right?’ [when the news came of Dana Reeve’s passing 12-year-old Will pretended to be asleep] but that’s an example – of which there are many in this film – that the full and comprehensive reliving happens throughout. We go to places, and so does the film, that haven’t been explored before.

Alexandra Reeve: It’s been amazing to see audience reactions [at film festivals] – just how much people are seeing themselves and their own story in this film. It dawned on us that our family circumstances were unique in many ways, but also that the themes in the film are so universal. So people are coming up, and talking about how they’ve navigated a loved one having a cancer, or being a caregiver, or dealing with loss, or thinking about how to stay a good friend after someone’s circumstances have changed. It’s this beautiful, humbling thing for people to see themselves in different moments, and connect to different pieces of this very human story. [Christopher Reeve] felt that too, very deeply – that for many people, he put a face on spinal cord injury and disability more broadly, because people felt they knew him so well from just that level of fame. And so if he could suddenly allow people to connect to his experience, and see beyond the wheelchair to see that he was still the same person – that really there are important, universal lessons to learn from that more generally.

Will Reeve: I know that it’s been a gift for me to see this film and use it personally as a way to make the image I have of my dad’s life and my mum’s life and our family’s story more vivid, and fill in some gaps, or further shade in some details that I either wasn’t yet alive for, or wasn’t aware of at the time. In psychology, it’s called a compositive memory, where you form an image in your mind that’s based off of photos and videos you’ve seen, and stories you’ve been told. Seeing those moments come back to life was a really touching and meaningful way to revisit the past. And then seeing everything that came before me – the Superman years, and even prior to that – to get to have a 360-degree view of his life in such a cinematic way has been one of the great blessings of this experience. And it was a disorientating experience at first to watch it, being like, ‘No, that’s me. This is about us’.

Matthew Reeve: There is no Christopher Reeve story without Dana Reeve, in the simplest form. It was not mandated by us in any way, but I think as the directors did their research, and we’d done our interviews, I think it became very clear to them just how important she was to us as a mother and stepmother, and how important she was to our father, and just what a remarkable, magical human being she was.

Alexandra Reeve: And to show our blended family, too [Matthew and Alexandra’s mother Gae Exton also appears in the film]. To be able to show that with the nuance, and the thoughtfulness to say, ‘You can have a relationship for 10 years. It can be the grounding moment for you, and then that can change. And then you can find your great love. And that those things can be in harmony together, and you can raise children stably throughout all that turmoil’. That side of a personal relationship doesn’t often get modelled on screen, and I’m really glad that they captured it as they did.

Will Reeve: I love that people get to see [my dad’s] silly, goofy, mischievous side. His public image, certainly as Superman, was literally the Man of Steel, and the dashing leading man with big muscles and the blue eyes. But he was human and grounded. He was a fun hang. His active dynamic lifestyle was of just always doing a million different activities, and always being on the go. I’m glad that people got to see his humanity throughout, which manifests itself a lot in his cheekiness.

Matthew Reeve: He was skilled in so many different things: flying aeroplanes, scuba diving, playing the piano, speaking fluent French, flying across the Atlantic solo twice, and gliding. He’d go up in open cockpit biplanes. I don’t think people really knew that.

Alexandra Reeve: For me, when I look back on my dad, the lessons I try to draw are that he was so determined and so self-disciplined in everything he did. And that’s a personality trait that was there way before the accident – it’s what allowed him to excel. And it was what got him through after the accident. Just the strength of character, and to keep persevering, but also to push himself to new challenges. He pushed himself to the limit every single day, no matter what the circumstances were – whether it was getting in shape for Superman, getting really good at skiing, or learning to ride a horse, or going out and directing a film after the accident. 

Will Reeve: The way that my parents remain present in my life now is through the values that they instilled in each of us. I get told pretty often how proud my parents would be of me, which is nice to hear. It’s not always true, by the way – I’m quite human! But they would be proud of my humanity as well. I know that if I live in accordance with the values and standards and expectations set by my parents in the short time we had together that everything in my life will align so that I am living in a way that honours them, and would certainly make them proud. And I don’t have to wonder what they would think or say or feel because I know, based on the time we had together, the proper path as defined by them.

Matthew Reeve: I think Dad would feel proud of this film because it’s a beautiful work of art. And it’s just him on the poster, and he’s had a whole movie made about him. The actor in him would love that!