Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | May 7, 2026
One of the most frustrating things I have heard about breaking into the business of show is that no one wants to work with you until someone wants to work with you. Essentially, you get to make or be in stuff after you've made and been in stuff. It makes sense! But then, the question becomes: How do you get that first thing? Do you generate your own opportunity? Do you find and nail a big audition? Do you make something with your friends and hope it just takes off? What do you do?
Then, the question becomes, how do you sustain it? Once you "make it" in the business, you want to try your hardest not to get left in the dust. Appearing in a few things is fun, but you need it to be sustainable if you want to turn it into a career. There has to be longevity. But even then, something can happen that can just rip you from the zeitgeist and leave you scrambling to cobble together jobs even though you've appeared in big movies. Then, on top of all of that, some other famous person can decide to say you don't deserve those chances, and you lose them all. Or, ya know, the exact opposite happens.
Someone like, let's say, Matthew Lillard, did not have a traditional path into the industry, but ended up making a sizeable name for himself. He's worked consistently, but things definitely "cooled off" after a while. However, over the last few years, he's been popping up quite a bit, and that was before Quentin Tarantino decided to fire strays at him on a podcast. Now, I see that guy everywhere! He was in the new Scream (for better and worse), he's poppin' up in Daredevil (same deal, according to Mike), and now he's on James Gunn's Instagram!
It may seem innocuous enough to the untrained eye. Gunn and Lillard have been friends for a long time, with Matthew appearing in a couple of Gunn's movies about a particularly hungry dog detective. But Gunn is currently shooting Man of Tomorrow, the sequel to Superman, and, well, it sure looks like the photo is from set and that Lillard is in some kind of costume (not that he isn't usually a snappy dresser). While DC has yet to confirm anything, and Gunn captioned the photo, "Just casually hanging out with my longtime friend @matthewlillard for no reason," it seems pretty clear what's going on here.
The only question now is who Lillard is playing. The photo looks like a normal old office, but if I had to take a guess, I'd wager that they are somewhere inside the Daily Planet (and that's also partly based on Lillard's glasses and tie combo). However, maybe he's a government employee or some kind of scientist studying Brainiac. There are plenty of options! But what matters is that Matthew Lillard keeps getting in front of the public's eyeballs where he belongs.
