During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Irish actor Pierce Brosnan not only revealed that he once auditioned to play Batman, but also how he lost out on the iconic role.
When director Tim Burton was making the original Batman movie in the late 80s, Brosnan was one of the actors vying to bring the Caped Crusader to the big screen. However, he thinks he lost the job due to a silly jape he made to Burton.
“I went up for Batman way back in the day when Tim Burton was doing it,” Brosnan remembered. “Obviously, I didn’t get the job. I remember saying something stupid to Tim Burton, I said, ‘You know I can’t understand any man who would wear his underpants outside his trousers.’ But there you go… the best man got the job.”
The part went to Michael Keaton, who reprised his version of the character in Burton’s sequel Batman Returns; he’ll also play Bruce Wayne again in the upcoming Flash movie. Brosnan likely would have done a fine job as Batman; his suave screen presence later landed him the career-defining role of James Bond in 1995’s GoldenEye. He would play 007 in three more films before handing his license to kill over to Daniel Craig.
Brosnan eventually came back to comic book movies, though; he is set to appear as Dr. Fate in the upcoming Black Adam movie, which hits theaters on October 21.
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