Jake Gyllenhaal Came Close to Playing Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Trilogy, Screenwriter Reveals

Jake Gyllenhaal almost played the Caped Crusader for director Christopher Nolan’s famous franchise.

Writer David S. Goyer appeared in a new episode of the series Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he revealed he vouched for Gyllenhaal, now 42, as the actor to play Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, in 2005. Batman begins.

The role eventually went to Christian Bale, who held the role in a trilogy of films all directed by Nolan (Oppenheimer).

“We would chat about all sorts of things. There were a few people doing screen tests and I was advocating for Gyllenhaal,” Goyer said. “I mean, Gyllenhaal is amazing, Christian Bale is amazing, so who knows what.”

Cult roles that were ‘almost’ played by someone else

Goyer said “I believe there is” when asked if there was footage of Gyllenhaal auditioning in a Batman costume somewhere.

He also recalled that a Warner Bros executive wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play the Riddler as the villain for the sequel dark Knight. But Goyer said, “That’s not the way we work,” explaining that they build movies around a story or theme, not a specific villain.

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dark KnightIn 2008, he played the late Heath Ledger (Gyllenhaal’s Brokeback Mountain costar) as the Joker, and posthumously won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Katie Holmes played Bruce Wayne’s love Rachel Dawes Batman beginsbut it was recast for a sequel – with Gyllenhaal’s sister actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.

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Jake got his comic book movie moment in 2019 when he played the supervillain Mysterio opposite Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Jake Gyllenhaal. Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Christopher Nolan says he won’t direct another superhero movie after ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy

He said vanity fair last year’s experience in making Spider man the film changed his outlook on acting after he took himself “too seriously”.

“It was such a cathartic thing to be able to shed all that seriousness and really become the actor that I think I’ve always wanted to be in a lot of ways… We go through the journeys in life that we’re on, and in case Spider man, I think I realized, ‘Hey, you know, acting is really fun, you know, enjoy it!’ ”

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Source: HIS Education