In an extensive interview at Collider.com to promote his new movie Immortals (out this Friday!), future Superman Henry Cavill revealed that he is not watching previous Superman TV series and movies in order to prepare for the role; instead, the comics are his source material.

“I avoided watching anything which was someone else’s interpretation of the source material,” he said. “I didn’t go back to the movies and watch them. I didn’t go back to the TV series and watch them. I didn’t want to take that and have that influence my interpretation and my performance of the character. Where the character truly belongs and where the character truly comes from is not from the movies or the TV shows; it’s from the comic books. So I went straight to the comic books and had stacks of them and just read and read and read and read and read. I enjoyed so much learning about the character in such a dense manner. The comic books were my source of material; the TV shows and movies were someone else’s interpretation and so I left that to them.”

Cavill also told a funny story about his nephews wearing Superman costumes to school and getting in trouble for it. “Apparently, they went to school when I first heard the news. One of them was wearing a little Superman outfit and the teacher sort of told them off and then spoke to my sister-in-law after, saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with the boys. I don’t know what you’ve been telling them. They’ve been lying to me, because they’re telling me that their uncle is Superman and frankly it’s ridiculous.’ Which brought my sister-in-law out there and she said, ‘Actually, it’s not ridiculous; he is [Superman]. So you’ve got to let them wear their little outfits. Thank you very much’,” he laughed when telling the story.

You can read the entire interview — complete with more Man Of Steel tidbits — here.