In 2012, Ben Affleck and George Clooney teamed up to produce the historical drama Argo and immediately became close friends. When Affleck was cast as Batman for 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice his good friend George Clooney had some advice for him as it pertained to playing the iconic character.
“I said: ‘Don’t do it’. Â It was only from my experience, which is, you know…he did great though”
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney shared some lesions he took away from his one-off time as the Caped Crusader. Â If you remember, or just can’t seem to forget, Clooney played Batman in the 1997 film Batman & Robin from Joel Schumacher. Â The movie was panned by critics and..well…was just bad.
“Schwarzenegger was paid, I think, 25 million dollars for that, which was like 20 times more than I was paid for it, and, you know, we never even worked together! We worked together one day. Â But I took all the heat. Â Now, fair deal; I was playing Batman and I wasn’t good in it, and it wasn’t a good film, but what I learned from that failure was, I had to rethink how I was working because now I wasn’t just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself.”
Clooney went on to make amazing movies and win awards following his rebound from that critical failure. Â Currently, Ben Affleck has exited the role as Batman inside the DCEU and no reports on if he will ever reprise the role have surfaced.
If both men learned one thing from playing such an iconic and difficult role is that it’s not easy being The Batman.
