Believe it or not, Jake Gyllenhaal was once in the running to play the Caped Crusader. IndieWire reports (via The Howard Stern Show) that the “Road House” actor revealed he was one of Christopher Nolan‘s final choices to play Bruce Wayne in “Batman Begins.” And that’s not only close casting Gyllenhaal unveiled: Baz Luhrmann was also looking at him to star in the 2001 musical “Moulin Rouge!“
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Losing out on big roles hurts, but Gyllenhaal considers those instances motivators, not defeats. “You learn to go, ‘There’s another one. I can try and go in and audition for another one. I’ll get something else.’ You keep that attitude,” said the actor. Obviously, Gyllenhaal didn’t get either role: Christian Bale donned Batman’s cape and cowl for Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy and the lead of Christian in “Moulin Rouge!” went to Ewan McGregor.
But Gyllenhaal appreciated that both actors called him personally to tell him the bad news. “To [their] credit, both of those directors called me personally to tell me [I didn’t get the part],” Gyllenhaal recalled. “And they will tell you why. When you get that far, there’s a real legitimacy to you potentially getting something. It’s not like they’re going, “Oh, thank you so much.” They are going, ‘I saw these aspects of you that I really wanted in the role and are wonderful, but in the end, I ended up moving this way because it matches better with this person who is opposite you or would be opposite you.’ The color of their hair or their height, whatever it is!”
“There are all these non-factors that really are the inexplicable stuff that if you start to pick away at, it doesn’t work, it’s not healthy,” Gyllenhaal continued. “To me, I just go, ‘Look at how far you got! So just try and keeping going.’ That’s what I felt. I remember getting a call from Christopher Nolan and thinking, ‘I just got a call personally from Christopher Nolan. That’s pretty cool. I’ve gotten pretty far. I went from them going they aren’t sure [about me] to a call saying they’re really thinking about you for this movie. So OK, I should keep going. I should just keep going.’”
And soon after not getting “Moulin Rouge!” and “Batman Begins,” Gyllenhaal started getting major leading roles, like “Brokeback Mountain,” “Jarhead,” and “Zodiac.” But Mysterio in “Spider-Man: Far From Home” is the closest Gyllenahall’s gotten to a superhero movies since Nolan’s 2005 film. Would he still consider the Batman role now? “Of course. It would be an honor, always,” said the actor. “Those types of things and those roles are classics.” So, Gyllenhaal as Batman in the new DCU? It’s not that wild of an idea…
“Road House” is streaming on Prime Video now.
