I hope any fanboys reading this are sitting comfortably in their mothers’ basements. It turns out that Christian Bale was ready to don the cape and cowl one more time, and was stunned when the role of Batman was passed off to Ben Affleck. In an interview with Empire, primarily to promote his shouty take on Moses for Ridley Scott, the actor discusses his shouty take on the Caped Crusader, and how he reacted to Affleck getting the part. “I’ve got to admit initially, even though I felt that it was the right time to stop, there was always that bit of me going, ‘Oh go on… let’s do another.’ So when I heard there was someone else doing it, there was a moment where I just stopped and stared into nothing for half an hour.” As I write this, I’m sure fans of Bale are staring into nothing–or their empty bottles of Jolt–as they ponder what might have been.
In the end, Bale felt he was too old to be jealous of Affleck. “But I’m 40. The fact that I’m jealous of someone else playing Batman… I think I should have gotten over it by now. I haven’t spoken with Ben, but I emailed him offering bits of advice that I learned the hard way. I would imagine he is doing everything he can to avoid doing anything that I did.” I’m sure Affleck’s take will be very different than Bale’s; expect a very whispery Batman, maybe even a soft-spoken Bruce Wayne.
