Matt Damon Said He Was Close to Playing Robin in Two Different BATMAN Movies, and He Passed on Playing Harvey Dent

Matt Damon is well known for not only the roles he has played in his career, but also some of the ones he’s turned down. He famously passed on starring in director James Cameron’s most profitable film series of all time, Avatar, but it turns out there are several more, including a few roles in the Batman franchises.

In a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast (via The Playlist), Damon said he auditioned for a Robin role in 1986 or 1987. He doesn’t give a lot of details and doesn’t remember much because he says he was about 16-years-old, but that has to be Tim Burton‘s 1989 Batman. It has been revealed that Burton’s initial ideas for Batman did include a Robin, though the character was later scrapped. Then, years later he was one of the Robin finalists for George Clooney‘s film, Batman & Robin, with Joel Schumacher at the helm.

“In 1993, I was one of the final three to play Robin in the George Clooney/Joel Schumacher Batman.Chris O’Donnell had the part, but they were haggling over money, and so the studio was flexing by flying two other people to screen test, but they wanted Chris, but they wanted him for a price. And I knew Chris and I remember calling him and being like, ‘I’ll work for a quarter of what that dude’s [asking for]. I want the job! So I flew in and auditioned for Joel, but they always intended it [for Chris.”

He went on to confess that he turned down a prominent role in director Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. He was up for the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face.

“Well, Dark Knight’ was a small role that I was offered. t wasn’t Heath or Christian’s part.”

He then, eventually, confirmed it was Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent part.

“There was some other big movie, some big part that I was doing where I was like, ‘Well, I can’t play Harvey Dent, this is a relatively small role, but I am headlining this other thing. But you gotta be sanguine about it and go, ‘It all works out.’ At this point, I passed on the biggest payday in the history [of cinema], accidentally, so I could never do worse financially, I could never commit a worse financial error.”

He’s referring to his Avatar blunder, laughing, but still a little bummed over the whole thing. Damon also said he passed on Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight (he would have had Mark Ruffalo‘s part) and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, a role that eventually went to Josh Brolin, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the part. But he seems to take it all in stride, saying, “I really do believe the actor gets the part they were meant to get… this happened for a reason and [Josh] was amazing.” Damon also said he and Ben Affleck almost had parts in Dead Poet Society when he was only 18 years old. This makes sense, as Damon went on to star in a similar star-studded young male ensemble drama around that time titled School Ties.

Which of these roles do you think Matt Damon would have been good in?