Pennyworth Star Jack Bannon Reveals His Favorite Batman Actor

Alfred is always there to assist when Batman needs anything. So many different Batmen have graced the silver screen and the newest Alfred recently talked about his favorite on the red carpet. Jack Bannon plays the Wayne family’s butler in his days before tending to The Dark Knight‘s battle wounds on the new series Pennyworth on EPIX.

Fans favorite version of Batman is usually directly linked to the movies that were out during your childhood. For viewers of the most recent era of films, Christian Bale is the definitive voice of the hero in the movies. Bannon explained why Bale is his favorite Caped Crusader in any Batman film to Variety during a short interview.

“Those films for me, I didn’t read comics growing up, so they were the films [I liked the best],” Bannon continued, “I was a little bit young for the Michael Keaton ones growing up, but I’ve since watched them and they’re also brilliant.”

Bannon means no shade with these comments, it’s just the Batman that he grew up with, plain and simple. There are just so many people to don the cape and cowl that it can be really hard to pick just one.

Looks like the newest Alfred loves the Nolan trilogy, but also enjoys Tim Burton’s earlier work as well. His appreciation for The Dark Knight films doesn’t stop there though; he also channeled Michael Caine who portrayed Alfred to prepare for the role.

“The first self tape that I did audition-wise, it was all quite rushed and I just did a terrible Michael Caine impression,” Bannon laughingly told TheWrap before the show’s premiere.

“He was the one who said, ‘I’ll play a butler as long as he’s ex-SAS,’ and gave us that background. And our version, our story, follows a lot of the army stuff and that kind of thing, so if it was anyone, it was Michael Caine,” Bannon continued. “I tried not to think about it too much, because there’s been so many great actors play him. But luckily for me, this is all before that, so I looked at it as they’re following me rather than I’m following them.”

All the groundwork set up by Caine during the Nolan movies will factor heavily in the series going forward. Viewers will have to keep in mind that this series, like Gotham, focuses on the other people around Batman so it seems unlikely that we will see the cape and cowl in a long sequence. In fact, Thomas Wayne will feature much more prominently than his son.

Batman fans will be following this series and how it will help to define future Alfred across numerous shows and cartoons to come. Just don’t expect Bale to come flying through an open window in this prequel.