If you didn’t already know, one of the rules when playing the Hollywood game is it’s never easy playing Batman. From Michael Keaton straight through to the news that Robert Pattinson is the top tier choice for the lead in director Matt Reeves’ entry in this character’s canon, it’s been consistently proven true.
But nowhere was that strife most felt than during George Clooney’s tenure in the Batsuit for director Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. However, Clooney himself has been known to apologize for his performance, as even he admits his Batman wasn’t that good. Please accept his apology, through the remarks provided by the actor below:
Now, fair deal: I was playing Batman and I wasn’t good in it, it wasn’t a good film. But what I learned from that failure was that I had to relearn how I was working. Now, I wasn’t just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself
More than just learning the lesson that it’s hard to be Batman, George Clooney learned in one of his earliest major motion pictures that when you accept a role in a film like Batman & Robin, you’re basically accepting responsibility for the film’s quality to a certain extent.
While the movie is in the hands of the director and other people plying their crafts alongside a lead actor such as Clooney, there’s going to be a public perception that his leading performance is the key factor that let the audience down.
However, there was a silver lining to the Batman & Robin experience that George Clooney had, and he let The Hollywood Reporter in on that knowledge as he talked to them for their Awards Chatter podcast. As it turns out, the sting of playing Batman helped the actor to choose projects a little wiser, which put him on a run of movies that still can’t be beat: Three Kings, Out of Sight and O Brother, Where Art Thou.
So while playing Batman isn’t the easiest job in the world, it’s certainly worth it. If you’re really good at it, you’ll be forever remembered as a titan of the role, like Michael Keaton and Christian Bale. But if you’re tenure is a little more embattled, like George Clooney or Ben Affleck, you’re going to learn some hard lessons about where you need to go next. An all important lesson for Robert Pattinson or Nicholas Hoult to consider, should either of them become the next Caped Crusader.
George Clooney can currently be seen in Hulu’s Catch-22, as all episodes are now streaming as of today. But if you’re looking for something more in the way of movies, you can hop over to our 2019 release schedule and see what’s coming down the road.
