Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai), who was named yesterday by Variety as the newest cast member of Batman: Intimidation will play the lead villain: Ra’s Al Ghul. Lord of the Rings’ Viggo Mortensen had been rumored to be in the running for the role.
For those unfamiliar with the comic, Ra’s is an international terrorist who commands a global organization of assassins and keeps himself eternally young by bathing in a Lazarus Pit.
Meanwhile, film headliner Christian Bale told German magazine Bunte that "I think Batman is probably more aggressive than most everybody I've ever played, you know. I wanted to take it, because, firstly, when I heard that there was a consideration of doing more of the movies, I just felt like I hadn't been quite satisfied with what I'd seen in the other movies. Certainly in the last two.
"And it seemed as though there was actually a real character here, that it wasn't just a bland kind of superhero, one-dimensional, " Bale said. "With him there really was an interesting character to be played. I loved the kind of fantastical notion of the superhero, but at the same time being able to bring a psychologically interesting element to that. "