There was a lot of hype behind Josh Hartnett when he first broke onto the Hollywood scene. He was offered some huge roles early on in his career which he now says he regrets turning down. Among the roles he turned down were offers to play Spider-Man, Superman and last but certainly not least, Batman.
Hartnett recently spoke to Playboy and talked about why turned down the offer to play Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.
“I’ve definitely said no to some of the wrong people, I said no because I was tired and wanted to spend more time with my friends and family. That’s frowned upon in this industry. People don’t like being told no. I don’t like it. I learned my lesson when [writer-director] Christopher Nolan and I talked about Batman. I decided it wasn’t for me. Then he didn’t want to put me in The Prestige. They not only hired their Batman for it, they also hired my girlfriend (Scarlett Johansson) at the time.”
“That’s when I realized relationships were formed in the fire of that first Batman film and I should have been part of the relationship with this guy Nolan, who I felt was incredibly cool and very talented, I was so focused on not being pigeonholed and so scared of being considered only one thing as an actor. I should have thought, Well, then, work harder, man. Watching Christian Bale go on to do so many other things has been just awesome. I mean, he’s been able to overcome that. Why couldn’t I see that at the time?”
