Robert Downey Jr. Reveals He Came Close to Playing an Iconic Batman Villain for Christopher Nolan

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe became the Hollywood juggernaut it is today, Tinsel Town’s various studios were busy developing self-contained franchises. One of those was Christopher Nolan’s widely-acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy, beginning with 2005’s Batman Begins. In the film, Christian Bale dons the cape and cowl as the Caped Crusader and faces off against Cillian Murphy’s beloved take on Scarecrow. As it turns out, Murphy wasn’t always the choice for the role. At one point, Robert Downey Jr. met Nolan for the role long before his days as the MCU’s Tony Stark.

“I’m pretty sure I heard about [this role] and I was like, ‘I’m Scarecrow,’ and then I remember meeting [Nolan] for tea and I was like, ‘He doesn’t seem like he’s really in on this interview,’” Downey said during a recent Oppenheimer Q&A. “And he was polite and all that. But you can tell when someone is kind of like, ‘It’s not going to go anywhere.’”

Cillian Murphy almost played Batman

Interestingly enough, before Murphy was cast as Jonathan Crane, he auditioned to play Batman.

“I don’t believe I was close to landing that role,” Murphy revealed in 2021. “The only actor who was right for that part at that time, in my estimation, was Christian Bale, and he absolutely smashed it. So, for me, it was just an experience, and then it turned into something else. It turned into that character, Scarecrow, and it turned into a working relationship with Chris. So I think back very, very fondly on that time, but I never, ever, ever considered myself Bruce Wayne material.”

In a previous interview with GQ, Murphy revealed Nolan created Scarecrow for the actor after his time spent auditioning for the Caped Crusader.

“I had seen Chris’ movies prior to Batman Begins and I was a huge fan of them,” Murphy explained. “About 10 of us went up for Batman and I was aware that I was clearly not the right material for Batman. So I did a screen test in the whole suit and everything. But Chris said there might be another part. So we met and we chatted, and I ended up playing Scarecrow in the end.”

Batman Begins is streaming on Max.