Why Christopher Nolan rejected Cillian Murphy for ‘Batman’
In the leadup to his latest film Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan has opened up about not casting Cillian Murphy as Batman. Oppenheimer will be Murphy’s first starring role in a Nolan film, despite having appeared in five of the director’s previous movies.
When speaking about his work with the Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan mentioned that the energy wasn’t working with Murphy as ‘The Caped Crusader’, telling Entertainment Weekly, “When we had our first conversation I think both of us knew that you weren’t going to wind up playing Batman. But I really wanted to get on set with [Murphy], I wanted to get [him] on film”.
Although executives showed up on Nolan’s set and were enamoured by his performance, Murphy went on to play the role of The Scarecrow, terrifying Gotham with a fear toxin as Christian Bale donned the cowl. Nolan ended up commending the executives for choosing Murphy as the main villain, since “All the previous Batman villains had been played by huge movie stars: Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Carrey, that kind of thing. That was a big leap for them and it really was purely on the basis of that test”.
Looking back on that time period, Murphy tended to agree with how the casting worked out, remarking, “It was clear to me from the beginning that I wasn’t Batman material,” said Murphy of screen testing for the role. “It felt to me that it was correct and right that it should be Christian Bale for that part. But I remember the buzz of trying on the suit and being directed by [Nolan]”. Murphy would still be around in future instalments of the franchise, appearing in small roles in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
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