How Robert Downey Jr’s audition for ‘Batman Begins’ terrified Christopher Nolan
In 2005, Christopher Nolan released the first part of what would become one of the most significant superhero movie trilogies of all time. Batman Begins forms the beginning of The Dark Knight trilogy, in which Christian Bale gave a tremendous performance as Batman, while the likes of Michael Caine and Gary Oldman played their Dark Knight characters for the first time.
The first of the trilogy preceded the iconic effort of Heath Ledger as The Joker, so it was down to Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy to provide Batman Begins’ antagonism as Ra’s al Ghul and Scarecrow, respectively, and it’s fair to say that both actors gave as intense an effort as Bale did in the lead role.
When it came time to casting, Nolan considered several alternate actors to those who eventually got the roles, with Jake Gyllenhaal famously losing out on the main part to Bale. As for Murphy’s character, Nolan had also auditioned for his future Oppenheimer star Robert Downey Jr, although the director admitted to being afraid of the actor given Downey Jr’s previous reputation.
Downey Jr had recently recovered from a long stint of drug addiction and had spent time in prison. However, that seemed to draw Nolan to the actor, and he auditioned him for the role of Scarecrow, despite knowing that the job was likely going to go to Murphy regardless of the audition process.
In an interview with The New York Times, Nolan had told Downey Jr, “I 100% knew you weren’t the guy. In my head, that was already cast.” However, Nolan also admitted that he’d always wanted to meet the actor, having already been a “huge admirer” of the work he’d given up until the mid-2000s.
Interestingly, given the reputation that Downey Jr had carved out for himself in the early part of his career, Nolan had actually been somewhat afraid of the actor. He noted, “I was also a little afraid of you, you know. I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.”
In 1996, Downey Jr was arrested for possession of heroin and cocaine and given three years of probation. After missing a drug test, he was sentenced to prison in 1999 and served 15 months. Shortly after, though, the actor made significant changes in his life, got clean, and started to get his career back on track. It was around this time that he began to be considered for significant roles, such as in Nolan’s film and, later, in Iron Man, which marked his professional revival.
In fact, Nolan has argued that Marvel’s decision to cast Downey Jr in the role of Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies served as one of the “most significant” casting moments in the history of Hollywood. The decision was indeed a risk on Marvel’s behalf, but it was one that undoubtedly paid off, and it was at that point, plus the Batman Begins meeting, that Nolan got over his slight concerns about Downey Jr.
Downey Jr would go on to win the Academy Award for his effort as Lewis Strauss in Nolan’s Oppenheimer, marking the full circle of the story. “I just really wanted to see this incredible movie star put down all of that baggage, that charisma, and just lose himself in a dramatic portrayal of a very complicated man,” the director said. “I always wanted to work with him, really. Once I stopped being afraid of him.”