Marsden takes break from super-hero genre

NEW YORK, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- Hollywood actor James Marsden said singing and dancing in the movie musical “Hairspray” was a nice change from those super-hero flicks he’s used to making.

Marsden has played Cyclops in the “X-Men” trilogy and Lois Lane’s love interest in “Superman Returns.”

“I just like taking the perception people may have of me and turning it upside down and I think in (‘Hairspray,’) I might turn it upside down about 50 times,” Marsden told reporters in New York.

Asked if it was nerve-wracking showing off his musical skills to an audience who never even knew he had them, Marsden said: “The singing wasn’t, only because it is something I have been doing for fun for a long time, but never really professionally.

“The dancing thing, there is good reason why people haven’t seen me do it because it’s not something I tout myself as being very good at it,” he laughed. “So, it was fun to step outside of the films that I’ve been doing the last 10 years with the super-hero stuff, which all have been fun and great, but it’s always good to do something different.”