An old photograph of Henry Cavill with his nephew wearing a Superman T-shirt has gone viral once again. The story is that Cavill’s nephew Thomas told his teachers at school that his Uncle was Superman and they didn’t believe him.
The photo in question is actually from 2013, when Cavill first played Superman in Man of Steel. Cavill was with one of his four brothers, sister-in-law and their two children, but the photo was cropped to make it look like Cavill was taking his nephew to school.
In that same year, Cavill told Jay Leno the anecdote; “My nephew Thomas was so super excited (when Cavill got cast as Superman)… he ran to school. Now keep in mind Thomas has got a great reputation for telling stories and just making up stuff to the teacher. He says, ‘Well, because my Uncle is Superman,’ and she’s like, ‘Oh okay’ and she pulls him aside. He got in trouble.” Thomas’ mother explained to the teacher that it was true, but Cavill did not pay a visit to the school. Sorry to disappoint! However, it must be very cool to be a kid with Superman as your uncle.
On 17 August 2022, someone tweeted the photo again with this caption; “When Henry Cavill had to prove to his nephew’s teachers that his Uncle was in fact Superman. The most Superman thing ever,” and it got over 100k likes. It’s not the first time that the story and photos have gone viral.
However, Cavill is a super…man in many other ways. Cavill is the ambassador of the Durrell Challenge in his birthplace – the Channel Island of Jersey. Named after naturalist and conservationist Gerald Durrell, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is on a mission to save species from extinction. The annual Durrell Challenge is a 13k fund-raising race that helps to support the charity’s work recovering wildlife and reviving ecosystems. Cavill always takes part when he can, and helps bring lots of publicity to the charity event.
On May 22, 2022 Cavill admitted that he had to walk this year’s Durrell Challenge (in an Instagram post) due to having “the nine shades of hell beaten out of me through two weeks of fight scenes [on season three of The Witcher], and ma body wasn’t ready for a 13k run!”
The other thing that makes Cavill a super man (in our eyes, at least) is the fact that he’s such a giant dorky nerd in the body of a Greek god. Cavill is never happier than when playing videogames such as Warhammer, World of Warcraft, and The Witcher (what’s with all the Ws, Henry?) – which is why it’s so sweet that he got his dream role as Geralt in the Netflix series. A highlight of the 2020 lockdown was Cavill posting a video of himself building a computer from scratch – set to the sultry stylings of Barry White, of course.
As recently as July 31, 2022, he posted an update about his fans, for his fans; “Due to excessive transit over the years, and no doubt the recent heat wave, my AIO cooler decided to give up on me (which is a computer thing for those scratching their heads right now). Soooo while replacing it I decided to upgrade my fans as well. These little beauties run niiiiice and quietly. I still have two more on the way to complete the set, but I became enormously impatient and installed the ones I had anyway.”
So – we’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news regarding that viral nephew story, but hopefully we’ve pulled it back with some examples of Cavill being the super man of our hearts. Check out our guide to the best action movies.