George Clooney learned lessons from Batman and Robin

George Clooney learned to look at scripts, rather than parts, after making ‘Batman Robin’.

The 59-year-old star portrayed the Caped Crusader in the 1997 film and while he acknowledges he was “bad” in the movie, the experience taught him he needed to look at the wider project when he signed on for a leading role because he’d be held “responsible” for its success or failure.

He said: “I was bad in it. It’s a bad film. But I was also being held responsible for it, in a weird way.

“Then I realised; if you’re gonna be Batman in Batman Robin’, you’re gonna be held responsible. Which never occurred to me.

“To me, I was still an actor getting a part. “from that moment on, I was like, ‘I have to pick the script, not the part.’ So the next script I did was ‘Out of Sight’ and the next I did was ‘Three Kings’. After that, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’. The scripts changed considerably.

“Everybody would say that ‘Batman’ was not the best. But the good news for me was I was able to take that as a lesson, as opposed to a career-ended.”

And George admitted he didn’t even enjoy the experience of making the blockbuster because everyone on set was having such a “tough time”.

He added in an interview with Empire magazine: “I did not enjoy that experience. I love Joel Schumacher, love the actors. But everybody was having a tough time. There was a lot of tension.

“It took, like, eight months to shoot.

“I was doing ‘ER’ while I was doing it – four days a week on ‘Batman’, three days a week on ‘ER’. Seven days a week. That one was just a slog.

“There were a lot of problems with it. “But, you know, one of the problems was that I wasn’t very good in it.

“Fair enough! I can’t point fingers at everybody else and not point fingers at myself.”

Past Batmans Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are set to reprise the role in upcoming film ‘The Flash’ but George knows he’s unlikely to do the same.

He laughed: “It’s funny – you’ll notice they didn’t call me. Somehow I didn’t get that call. They did not ask for my nipples… “Listen, there are certain things you never know. This one, I know.”

Article source: https://www.contactmusic.com/george-clooney/news/george-clooney-learned-lessons-from-batman-and-robin_6326555