Chris Nolan on The Dark Knight Casting Rumors
Written by Robert Sanchez
Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Ever since the conclusion of Batman Begins rumors have run rampant regarding the cast of the next film to follow.
Even before the announcement of the Dark Knight title, or the casting of Heath Ledger, there has been constant talk of which actors would be offered roles in the film. Is there any truth to any of these rumors?
The IESB, along with a few select websites, were invited down to an edit bay visit with Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas while he was doing the final sound mixing for The Prestige which stars Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, and Michael Caine.
In the midst of all the Prestige talk, we were able to get him to talk a bit about the highly anticipated Batman sequel.
Ryan Phillippe and Phillip Seymore Hoffman have been rumored to be in the running for Harvey Dent and the Penguin, respectively. Is there any validity here or pure speculation? “As the penguin, no, not true.” Also, was Sean Penn originally offered the role of the Joker before Heath Ledger? Laughingly he said, “no, no truth to any of those rumors.”
Here is the entire transcript of the Batman Begins questions:
Q: Looking at Batman Begins now, were you surprised or was that the reaction you were expecting to get?
CN: I was very surprised for the simple reason that I felt that we really put our hearts into making a great film and I felt that on our own terms we had succeeded but I never never really expected to satisfy critics and fans, you know Batman fans, and regular audiences equally. I mean I thought maybe we'd get two points of the triangle but the fact that all three groups seem to respond well, that was a big surprise. It felt like you were going to lose one aspect of that somewhere along the line. But, I don't know, we were very fortunate in that regard.
Q: Because the formula works so well is that something that you were looking to do for The Dark Knight?
CN: I think, what people responded to most about Batman Begins is how different it was from their expectations. So I think we would be foolish to not recognize that and attempt to do something very different in the sequel. I certainly wouldn't have, you know, any interest in somewhat trying to repeat the experience that the film already made because I think, particularly being an origin story, it's a very unique thing very singular. My interest in the sequel is to move on from there and do something quite different.
Q: Since you did the origin story, it frees you up from doing the whole introduction, so are you expecting to do a whole lot more action the second time around?
CN: Um, I mean we certainly put a lot of action into Batman Begins through the film even though it didn't involve Batman until 50 minutes in or whatever. So certainly we are free to put Batman into action earlier on. But if you look at the, I mean the rhythm of action movies is very complicated because there is a limit actually to how much action is in the film, how you have to have a particular ebb and flow to what actually works and Batman Begins is pretty stuffed to be honest. But, it didn't all get to involve that character, Bruce Wayne was Batman because of the origin and that we don't have to do.
Q: Any truth to the rumors of Ryan Phillippe or Phillip Seymore Hoffman?
CN: (Laughing) As the penguin, no, not true.
Q: Sean Penn?
CN: No truth, no truth to any of those rumors. All interesting ideas though.
