David Packard Corenswet (; born July 8, 1993) is an American actor. After graduating from The Juilliard School in 2016, he began guest-starring in television series, including House of Cards in 2018. He played lead roles in the Netflix series The Politician (2019–2020) and Hollywood (2020), both created by Ryan Murphy. In 2022, he starred in the films Look Both Ways and Pearl, and the HBO miniseries We Own This City. After supporting roles in the film Twisters and the miniseries Lady in the Lake (both 2024), he rose to prominence with his portrayal of the titular superhero in James Gunn's DC Universe (DCU) film Superman (2025).
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Early life
David Packard Corenswet was born on July 8, 1993, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up there and in Lower Merion with his older sister Amy. His father, John Corenswet, was from a Jewish family in New Orleans, and worked as a stage actor in New York City for many years before becoming a lawyer. His mother is also a lawyer. His maternal grandfather is author Edward Packard, creator of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.
Corenswet graduated from the Shipley School and attended the University of Pennsylvania for a year before transferring to the Juilliard School, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama in 2016.
Career
Beginnings (2002–2018)
As a child actor, Corenswet appeared in numerous professional theater productions, including the Arden Theatre's 2002 production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival's 2003 production of Macbeth, the Walnut Street Theatre's 2003 production of La Vie En Bleu, and the People's Light and Theatre Company's 2004 production of The Forgiving Harvest, among others. Corenswet wrote the screenplay for and acted in Following Chase (2011), directed by Greg Koorhan. He next co-wrote, produced, and starred in a two-season sketch-comedy web series, Moe & Jerryweather (2014–2016) along with fellow Juilliard grad Adam Langdon. In 2016, director Rob Reiner cast Corenswet as a co-lead in his planned television series, The Tap, set at Yale College in 1969. Corenswet played a student. USA Network ordered the pilot episode, which was filmed in 2017, but declined to pick up the series.
In Corenswet's first film role after graduating from Juilliard, he starred as Michael Lawson in Affairs of State (2018), a political thriller. The film also stars Thora Birch, Mimi Rogers, and Adrian Grenier. Los Angeles Times described the film as "well-acted". Corenswet then appeared in several guest-star roles, including in House of Cards, Elementary, and Instinct.
Rising popularity (2019–present)
In Netflix's The Politician (2019–2020), directed by Ryan Murphy, he portrayed River Barkley, the lover and high-school political rival of Payton Hobart (Ben Platt). Vanity Fair described River as a "wealthy, sporty, straight-A student". Corenswet next starred as Jack Castello in Hollywood (2020), a Netflix limited series about the post-World War II film business in Los Angeles. The project reunited him with Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the creators of The Politician. Corenswet was also an executive producer on the series. Men's Health magazine praised Corenswet's performance as that of a "breakout lead". IndieWire called it "another star-proving turn from David Corenswet."
In We Own This City (2022), a fact-based HBO limited series from The Wire's writers and executive producers David Simon and George Pelecanos, Corenswet co-starred as the veteran police investigator David McDougall, whose work in 2016 helped uncover years of corruption in the Gun Trace Task Force of the Baltimore police department. Also in 2022, Corenswet co-starred as Jake in Look Both Ways, a Netflix original romantic comedy-drama film. Corenswet then co-starred as The Projectionist in Pearl, a feature film directed by Ti West and released in theaters by A24 in 2022.
Corenswet next portrayed the male lead in a pilot from 20th Television, filmed in January and February 2023: The Answers, FX's adaptation of Catherine Lacey's novel of same name. His character, Christopher Skye, is a charismatic but troubled movie star involved in an enigmatic, futuristic dating experiment.
In 2024, Corenswet co-starred with Lucy Boynton, Justin H. Min, and Austin Crute in The Greatest Hits, a film for Searchlight Pictures written, directed, and produced by Ned Benson. Described as a "musical time travel romance," the film premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Also in 2024, Corenswet played Scott, a member of a team of tornado chasers, in Twisters, a disaster film. Corenswet also appeared alongside Natalie Portman in the Apple TV+ series Lady in the Lake, directed by Alma Har'el.
A few years earlier, in a November 2019 interview, Corenswet had said that portraying Superman was his "pie-in-the-sky ambition," and that, while he loved the dark and gritty version of Superman in Man of Steel (2013), he hoped to eventually see a bright and optimistic version of the character. In June 2023, that ambition was realized: He was cast as the titular superhero in the DC Studios film Superman by director James Gunn. The first live-action film in the DC Universe (DCU), it was released in theaters in July 2025 and received widespread critical praise. On August 6, 2026, it was announced that, for his performance in that movie, Corenswet had won the Critics' Choice Super Award for Best Actor in a Superhero Movie. He reprises the role in the 2026 film Supergirl, and in the upcoming 2027 film Man of Tomorrow.
Personal life
In March 2023, Corenswet and Julia Best Warner were married at Immaculate Conception Church in New Orleans. It was an interfaith wedding ceremony that included both his wife's Catholic customs and his father's Jewish customs. It was officiated by a priest and a rabbi. They have one daughter, born in 2024; in April 2025 it was reported that they had moved back to Pennsylvania to raise her. Corenswet has stated that he was raised Buddhist, but "not in a religious sense", and that his family went to a mindfulness retreat center for a week every summer when he was growing up.
