Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan reunited again for Oppenheimer and the duo is recalling their previous collaboration in Batman Begins.
In an interview with EW, Nolan recalled seeing Murphy in the newspaper talking about 28 Days Later and was captivated by his look and having him screen test for the DC film.
Murphy said that he didn’t feel like he was “Batman material” adding, “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.
“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,” Nolan said. “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 continued, “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. 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.”
