Actor Henry Cavill weighed in on the state-line disagreement about the Chiefs

Some pretty big names in the acting world have become Chiefs fans since quarterback Patrick Mahomes became the team’s starter.

That includes Henry Winkler and Morgan Freeman, and both have talked about how much they love watching Mahomes play.

But Henry Cavill, who portrayed Superman in a number of Zach Snyder D.C. movies, was a Chiefs fan before Mahomes came to Kansas City. That’s a point he made Monday while on “The Rich Eisen Show.”

“Man of Steel” was released in 2013, and Cavill wanted to get into football after moving to the United States. Having grown up on an island in the English Channel, he was unfamiliar with the NFL.

“Being over here, wanting to get into football, learning that I can actually enjoy the game because initially I thought it’s just a bad version of rugby,” Cavill said. “And I realize it’s human chess, essentially, it’s nothing like rugby.”

Cavill began to root for the Chiefs based on his character in the D.C. movies. Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego, was from Smallville, Kansas.

While discussing that with Eisen, Cavill weighed in on the state-line chatter that ensnares so many fans in this area.

“I had to pick a team and I thought, well, what’s going to be a constant in my life? What’s going to be one thing ... I’ll always have a connection to in one way or another. And it was clearly Superman,” Cavill said. “And I thought, ‘Great. Now who would Superman support?’

“And even though the Chiefs, I often hear this, they say, but they’re not in Kansas. They kind of are. They’re not, but they are. And that is who Clark would have supported, and I figured I’ll stick with the Chiefs and then they started winning.”

Eisen noted: “Kansas City fandom does not stop at the Missouri-Kansas border. It does spill over to the other side.”

“Yeah,” Cavill said, “it’s not a hard wall.”

Cavill added that the first game he attended was the Chiefs’ 18-16 loss to the Steelers in an AFC Divisional playoff game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. He noted he wasn’t a fair-weather Chiefs fan.

That loss to the Steelers was one of many heartbreaking postseason defeats for the Chiefs before the Mahomes Era.

Cavill got to see the latest championship in person. He was invited by Apple to a suite at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII. Because Apple’s headquarters are near San Francisco, most of the people with him that day were rooting for the 49ers, and they were celebrating loudly ... in the first half.

“I didn’t get the memo that I should be less vocal when we started smashing them in the second half,” Cavill said. “And, yeah, so hopefully one day I will be invited back. But the chances are low.”