Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan have collaborated on a variety of projects. Thinking back to the first, Nolan recently called Cillian Murphy’s Batman Begins audition one of the best he’s ever seen.
What did Christopher Nolan think of Cillian Murphy’s audition for Batman Begins?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly alongside Murphy, Nolan reflected on his initial meeting with Murphy. The actor had originally had put his name into the ring to play Batman himself. Nolan said that both him and Murphy knew Batman wouldn’t be his, but the director still wanted to get Murphy in the film.
“When we had our first conversation I think both of us knew that you weren’t going to wind up playing Batman,” said Nolan. “But I really wanted to get on set with you, I wanted to get you on film. We did those screen tests very elaborately, on 35mm, with a little set.”
Nolan went on to praise Murphy for his “electric” audition. He noted that he even had executives come down to watch to convince them Murphy could be the Scarecrow they needed.
“There was just an electric atmosphere in the crew when you started to perform,” Nolan said. “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.”
In the end, Murphy did end up getting cast as Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, a role he’d reprise in all three of Nolan’s Batman films. Murphy would also go on to appear in a number of other Christopher Nolan films, including Inception, Dunkirk, and the upcoming Oppenheimer, where he’ll star as the titular scientist.
