Jake Gyllenhaal was considered for Batman before Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy
Sep 26, 2023
Washington [US], September 26 : For Christopher Nolan's directorial superhero film ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy, it's difficult to envision anyone other than Christian Bale donning the Batsuit, but screenwriter David S Goyer revealed that actor Jake Gyllenhaal was considered for the role, reported The Hollywood Reporter.
Goyer, who worked on the trilogy's plot and co-wrote 2005's ‘Batman Begins’, claimed on an episode of the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast that he "advocated for Gyllenhaal" after a number of actors tried out for the role of Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, in the first movie.
“I mean, Gyllenhaal’s amazing, Christian Bale’s amazing, so who knows what,” he added.
When host Josh Horowitz questioned him if Gyllenhaal's Batman audition was captured on camera, he responded, “I believe there is, yes.”
As for other roles in Nolan’s trilogy, Goyer said, “There were a couple of different candidates in the running for Ra’s Al Ghul,” but that he voted for Liam Neeson because he “was a little older.” He said it made more sense with the story they were trying to tell regarding “this paternal story about the shadow of his [Bruce’s] father,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In ‘Batman Begins’, the antagonist Ra's al Ghul was credited as being played by Ken Watanabe as a dummy, while Liam Neeson—who played Ra's al Ghul in the 2012 sequel ‘The Dark Knight Rises’— was credited by his alias Henri Ducard.
Goyer also recalled an executive from Warner Bros. suggesting to him at the premiere of 2008’s The Dark Knight that Leonardo DiCaprio should play the Riddler in the next film. But Goyer told him, “That’s not the way we work.”
He said Nolan is “very process driven” and was “staunchly against” building a movie around the villain “because he said that’s not a bottom, ground-up way of telling a story. Let’s do it in a very naturalistic way, so let’s figure out what kind of story we want to tell and what we thematically want to explore with Bruce, and then let’s figure out a villain that fits that story,” reported The Hollywood Reporter.
