Superhero movies are filled with all sorts of what-ifs. The development process is such that directors and actors will circle projects and roles but sometimes, for whatever reason, the stars won’t align. However, its the rarer instance in which someone flatly turns something down, but such was the case when Josh Hartnett said no to starring in Christopher Nolan‘s “Batman Begins.”
A couple years back, the actor said that, at the time, the franchise revival “wasn’t for me,” but it was a decision he came to regret, because “relationships were formed in the fire of that first Batman film and I should have been part of the relationship with this guy Nolan, who I felt was incredibly cool and very talented. I was so focused on not being pigeonholed and so scared of being considered only one thing as an actor.”
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Now, in a new interview with Associated Press, Hartnett clarified that he wasn’t quite saying no to tentpoles, but instead, he was simply embracing the kinds of movies he preferred to be making.
“I would welcome the opportunity to be in a relationship with a great artist in our film culture, no matter where they’re making films,” he said. “In that instance, I think my regret mostly was not forming the friendship or the creative partnership with that director, more than it was [not] doing ‘Batman.’ It wasn’t about not doing studio films. At the time, what I was interested in was…the film that I did instead of that was a tiny film about a guy with Asperger’s Syndrome, falling in love with a woman with Asperger’s Syndrome. It was a true story [called] ‘Mozart And The Whale.’ It was more a question of what I wanted to do as opposed to what I didn’t want to do, and I always try to look at things that way.”
All told, Hartnett seems to be in a good place about his decision and, to be honest, it’s really hard to imagine anyone but Christian Bale in the role at this point.