When Christopher Nolan Set Up A Screen Test For Cillian Murphy As ‘Batman’ Despite Both Knowing He Wasn’t The ‘Material’, Just To Get Studio’s Attention On The Actor
Christopher Nolan once had a desperation to work with Cillian Murphy & he actually set up a screen test for the actor. Read to know more!
Christopher Nolan Shares An Interesting Tale Of Cillian Murphy’s Casting In Batman Begins(Photo Credit –wikimedia)
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Christopher Nolan is a gem of a director and has his own process of getting things done in the right way. He once had a desperation to work with Cillian Murphy and he actually set up a screen test for the actor as Batman, just to get the production studio’s attention on him. This eventually led to Murphy bagging a role in the film. Keep reading to know more!
It traces back to the times of Batman Begins (2005) when Murphy had approached Nolan for the titular role in the film. However, just after the initial conversation, Nolan and Murphy learned that the actor wasn’t a perfect fit for Bruce Wayne/Batman. Still, Nolan was eager to cast Murphy in the film and to get it done, he arranged a screen test.
While talking to Entertainment Weekly, Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy shared an interesting story of Scarecrow’s casting in Batman Begins. Nolan shared, “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 you (Murphy), I wanted to get you on film. We did those screen tests very elaborately, on 35mm, with a little set. There was just an electric atmosphere in the crew when you started to perform.”
To draw the studio’s attention to Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan arranged a screen test for the actor and asked him to do a Batman scene. The director further shared, “We did two scenes — there was a Bruce Wayne scene and a Batman scene — and I made sure that executives came down and watched what you were doing on set. Everybody was so excited by watching you perform that when I then said to them, ‘Okay, Christian Bale is Batman, but what about Cillian to play Scarecrow?’ There was no dissent. 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. So that’s how you got to play Scarecrow.”
Adding onto Nolan‘s interesting tale of his casting in Batman Begins, Cillian Murphy admitted that he knew from the start that he wasn’t a ‘Batman material’.
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