Jake Gyllenhaal isn’t letting missing out on playing the Caped Crusader drag him down.
The actor reflected on not being cast in Christopher Nolan‘s “Batman Begins” during a recent appearance on “The Howard Stern Show” in the below video. While Gyllenhaal admitted to feeling some “disappointment” when he lost out on Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!” before Ewan McGregor was cast, it taught him a lesson that he had to apply when he was denied the part of Bruce Wayne years later.
“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,” Gyllenhaal said.
Both “Moulin Rouge!” director Luhrmann and “Batman Begins” helmer Nolan personally reached out to Gyllenhaal to explain why he didn’t land the respective lead parts.
“To [Nolan’s] credit and to Baz [Luhrmann’s] credit, both of those directors called me personally to tell me [I didn’t get the role],” Gyllenhaal said. “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, thanks 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!”
The “Road House” star added, “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. 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.’”
Christian Bale ultimately led Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. Yet Gyllenhaal isn’t ruling out playing Batman sometime in the future. The actor told Screen Rant that he would be honored to take on the “classic” role if offered.
“Of course. It would be an honor, always,” Gyllenhaal said. “Those types of things and those roles are classics.”
