Long before Oppenheimer came along, director Christopher Nolan considered Robert Downey Jr. for another role in his DC film Batman Begins. The actor recently revealed that he met with the filmmaker to take on the role of the villain Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow before Cillian Murphy was ultimately cast.
In a video posted on X, the actor talks about the experience of meeting with Nolan for the film, and how he knew it wasn’t going to lead to anything. He explained:
“And I remember meeting him for tea and I was like, ‘He doesn’t seem like he’s really leaning on this interview.’ He was polite and all that, but you can tell when someone is kind of like … it’s not going to go anywhere.”
While it didn’t go anywhere for Batman Begins, things eventually came around years later when Nolan cast him in Oppenheimer, which earned Downey Jr. a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.
Cillian Murphy was perfect for the role of Scarecrow in Batman Begins, but it would’ve been interesting to see how Downey Jr. would have brought the character to life. It’s pretty wild that at one point he was considered for this DC villain. The whole thing would have turned out so much different, but he would’ve had fun with it.
