Christopher Nolan Offers Insight on Cillian Murphy's Batman Audition

As many of you already know, before Cillian Murphy was cast as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, he auditioned for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. During a recent interview with EW, Nolan opened up about wanting to work with Murphy and offered insight on his Batman audition.

Nolan recalled seeing Murphy in the newspaper talking about 28 Days Later and really liked his look, so he brought him in for a screentest.

Murphy said that he didn’t feel like he was “Batman material,” and explained: “It felt to me that it was correct and right that it should be Christian Bale for that part. But I remember the buzz of trying on the suit and being directed by you. Those tests were high production values.”

Nolan went on to talk about the screentest, saying: “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, 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.”

Nolan went on to say that he made sure the WB executives came down to watch Cillian perform in the screen test: “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.”

He knew that he wasn’t going to play Batman, but he wanted him for Scarecrow. The filmmaker continued: “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.”

Cillian was freakin’ perfect in that role and he gave a hell of a great performance. Murphy has been wanting the lead in one of Nolan’s films for a very long time. He said he “was desperate” to lead one of his films, and he got his chance with the upcoming movie Oppenheimer, which movie buffs are very excited about.