Christopher Nolan Confirms Josh Hartnett Was In The Running to Play Batman, But Was 'More Interested' In Another Movie

Christian Bale famously played Batman in Christopher Nolan‘s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy. However, we recently learned that another actor was in the running for the part – Josh Hartnett.

The 44-year-old actor worked with Christopher on the director’s star-studded new movie Oppenheimer, which marks their first collaboration.

However, in a recent interview, Christopher confirmed that he did talk to Josh about played the Caped Crusader years ago. he revealed how far along they got in the audition process and said that the actor was “more interested” in another part at the time.

Read more about Josh Hartnett’s Batman experience…

“I met with Josh and if I recall, he was a young actor whose work I was very interested in,” Christopher recollected while on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. He said that “it never got that far” when asked if Josh had done a screen test for the role.

He continued, saying, “I had an initial conversation with him but he had read my brother’s script for The Prestige at the time and was more interested in getting involved with that. So it never went further than that.”

Interestingly, The Prestige also wound up starring Christian Bale.

If you missed it, Christopher recently weighed in on if he’d be interested in doing another superhero movie, and he had a very brief answer.

Press play on Christopher Nolan’s interview below…