Actor Cillian Murphy thought about how he almost played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
Actor Cillian Murphy thought about how he almost played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
Murphy stars in Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, a historical thriller about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the person who later became known as the father of the atomic bomb. However, that’s just another part of the long history of Nolan and Murphy’s collaboration. The actor-director duo have collaborated on the Inception, Dunkirk, and The Dark Knight trilogies.
Although Murphy starred in Nolan’s three Batman films as the villainous Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow became known, Murphy almost played the Caped Crusader himself. He even went so far as to do a screen test for the role.
“It was more exciting than nerve-wracking because I never thought of myself as the perfect physical Batman,” Murphy said GamesRadar+. “It was just an opportunity to work with him, albeit for a short time. They had built the entire sets and everything was shot on 35mm. So it was a real screen test. And it always felt like it should always be Christian Bale. But then something happened in that test and he gave me the other role in Scarecrow. And we just kept working.”
Nolan shares his side of the story, saying“The first time I met Cillian was for Batman Begins and I was looking for the man who could play Batman and I had seen a photo of him in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. I was just really struck by his looks and his amazing eyes and that look.” This is someone I want to work with.”
What is Cillian Murphy’s next film?
Murphy plays J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer, out July 21, 2023.