There’s been a recent trend as of late where many Marvel and DC characters have been portrayed by British Actors. Gary Oldman believe that filmmaker Christopher Nolan was the genesis of this trend.
Christian Bale was once hesitant to use his real accent in interviews about ‘Batman Begins’
For the most part, Batman has been mostly played by American actors both in live action and animation. Bale was the first live-action English actor to portray the caped crusader in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. He initially became interested after being given a Batman comic. From there, he asked his agent to keep an eye out on any potential news regarding a Batman movie.
His interest in playing the superhero grew when he learned about Christopher Nolan’s involvement. Eventually, he’d get the part, which he was so passionate about that he felt he’d be the next Batman no matter what.
“By the time I actually came to be cast I kind of gotten so obsessed about it that I kind of viewed it as it being mine already. It would’ve been more like…if they had told me like ‘No its not yours’. I would’ve been like, ‘No way that’s not working out, that’s not going to happen,’” Bale once told Black Film.
While promoting his Batman Begins, Bale would often use his American accent. This was partially due to many seeing Batman as American.
“But I just feel that Batman is such an American character that in representing him in doing the interviews I don’t want to be sounding English because that would be peculiar,” he explained. “I would expect people to be saying, ‘What the hell is going on? Why do we have an English Batman?’”
Gary Oldman believed Christopher Nolan started the trend of British actors playing superheroes
Since Bale’s casting, there have been many more American-based superheroes being played by British actors. Spider-Man and Superman, for instance, have been portrayed by Andrew Garfield and Henry Cavill respectively. Both actors have English origins. Currently, Spider-Man is being portrayed by another English actor in Tom Holland.
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Dark Knight star Gary Oldman shared what he thought about these types of castings.
“Well, I think what happens is a trend. And someone starts the trend, and it’s so blinkered that they go, ‘Oh yeah, now it’s this,’ and off they go,” Oldman said in a 2014 interview with Den of Geek.
Oldman believed Nolan originated the trend by casting Bale as Batman.
“Now, Chris auditioned people for Batman, and there are qualities you have to have, and you have to have a good jaw. You’ve got to look good in that suit as well. So he cast, he auditioned, like Christian [Bale], called him back, did another test to be sure, and cast him as Batman. And that caused a whole trend, like dominoes. I think it takes one person with imagination like Nolan,” Oldman said.
Like Bale, Cavill was also a British actor who played a superhero after a long line of American actors preceded him as the Superman character. But Cavill explained his nationality had no bearing on his performance as the superhero in Man of Steel. This was because Cavill considered Superman’s story something that everyone can recognize regardless of nationality.
“Well, Superman… he’s universal. He’s just a guy who loves the human race and wants to do the best thing for everyone. There’s no real differences that I pull from any national sort of belief in Superman. Superman’s just a guy,” Cavill once said according to Just Jared.
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