It's no secret that X-Men: Days of Future Past star Nicholas Hoult made it down to the final two for The Batman, only to ultimately lose the role of Bruce Wayne to Robert Pattinson.
Don't feel too sorry for him, though, as it wasn't long until the British actor landed a lead role in Superman - and the wider DCU, we'd imagine - as Lex Luthor.
Talking to Josh Horowitz, Hoult reflected on missing out on playing the Caped Crusader and admitted it wasn't easy to come that close to a dream role, only to miss out at the very last minute.
"Yeah, of course, it is an emotional blow because your imagination doesn't know! [Laughs] You're aware on a practical level," he explains. "You're like, 'I know that I'm auditioning against Rob,' and Rob's fantastic in that movie."
"I think that was the right decision but also, you get excited about the prospect - Matt's a fantastic director, and the script and everything I was like, 'This is going to be a cool movie. I want to be part of it, and a brilliant character.'"
He adds, "So then there's obviously a weird period before you can get to the acceptance and see the movie and be like, 'Oh yeah that works, that was the right choice.' You have to go through the period of like, 'Oh what could I have done differently?' You run through all those things, obviously."
The Juror #2 star would go on to say that, as well as the emotional toll of losing out on the role, the fact the process was made so public presented another challenge altogether (then there was the small matter of Pattinson becoming the clear favourite before he'd even auditioned).
"Most people day today don't care about this stuff, but it feels weird then because you're like 'Oh...' and it's one thing to have your failures, it's one another thing to have them publicly broadcast, seemingly to everyone. It adds an element of drama to it, I suppose," Hoult acknowledges.
"I remembered a week before we did The Batman test, I was driving in my car, and I had the radio on, and they were like and they were talking on the radio about how Rob was going to be the new Batman and I was like, 'Well, it's not confirmed yet.' I was like, 'I'm auditioning next weekend, give me a chance.'"
In the rest of the interview, Hoult also talks about the moment he realised he'd be a better fit for Luthor than Superman, why Lex Luthor: Man of Steel is the comic that's been most useful to him, and why he didn't hesitate to join Gunn's DCU after missing out on The Batman.
You can watch that (starting at the 28:00 mark) in the player below.