Cillian Murphy Says Christian Bale “Defined” Batman, Considers Himself to Be Physically Incapable of Playing the Famous DC Character
Irish actor Cillian Murphy, best known for playing Thomas Shelby on BBC’s hit television series Peaky Blinders, recently appeared in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. He portrayed the character of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the movie and was highly praised for the same.
Oppenheimer is not the first movie in which Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan had collaborated as they had previously worked on The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk. The two of them have expressed how much they enjoy working with each other which is why they like to collaborate again and again. Did you know Murphy had auditioned for the role of Batman but he knew that he would not get it? Let’s find out what the actor has to say.
Also read: Cillian Murphy Did Not Like One Thing About His Peaky Blinders Role
Cillian Murphy knew he was the wrong choice to play Batman
In his appearance on WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Cillian Murphy who started working with filmmaker Christopher Nolan in 2005 with Batman Begins in which Christian Bale the role of Bruce Wayne a.k.a., Batman had shared that he auditioned for the part of Batman even when he knew he was not the right choice. He said,
“So, that was 20 years ago. I think he’d seen 28 Days Later, actually. We met up here in L.A., he for some reason wanted me to screen test for Batman, which I think I knew, and he knew, I was wrong for. But I did the test, and then saw something in that and cast me as Scarecrow in Batman Begins and we continued on making movies.”
On asking why the Irish actor thinks that he was the wrong choice to play Batman on-screen, he said,
“I don’t think, I’m the physical specimen to play Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale transformed himself into that role and he’s done many, many times. I think defined that role as Batman.”
During the conversation, the actor acknowledged that he just like every other actor who had auditioned for Batman’s role wore Val Kilmer’s suit from Batman Forever and described that the suit was quite roomy.
Cillian Murphy said he was ‘desperate to play a lead’ for Christopher Nolan movie
In an interview with the Associated Press, the actor who finally had the opportunity to appear as the lead actor in Nolan’s movie with Oppenheimer shared,
“I have always said publicly and privately, to Chris, that if I’m available and you want me to be in a movie, I’m there. I don’t really care about the size of the part. But deep down secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him.”
He added that to him it felt like the right time for him to take on a bigger responsibility and it happened with Oppenheimer. Peaky Blinders actor said the filmmaker is so understated and self-deprecating in his English manner.
Murphy further mentioned that his character in Oppenheimer was complicated, contradictory yet an iconic one to portray on-screen but with someone like Nolan to guide him through it, he gained the confidence and went along with it. He also mentioned that Nolan had told them that whether people like it or not, Oppenheimer is an important person who lived.
Oppenheimer was released on July 21.
