When Warner Bros. and Matt Reeves were searching for an actor to play the Dark Knight in The Batman, the hunt came down to two: Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult.
The latter, who played Beast in the X-Men movies, recently shared his regrets about missing out on the role. At the time, he faced stiff competition not only from Pattinson, but also Jack Raynor, Alexander Ludwig, Jack O'Connell, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Any one of them would have been an exciting choice, though it's hard to imagine anyone other than "Battinson" as the Caped Crusader now.
That's something Hoult acknowledged during a recent interview with GQ.
"Of course," he responded when asked if he wanted to play Batman for Reeves. "I'm sure if you ask most people, they'll tell you they'd want to portray that role. I think Matt Reeves' ideas were fantastic and he made a brilliant movie. And I also think that Rob [Pattinson] did an amazing job with the character, and I loved seeing him in it."
"I don't think I would have done as good a job as him, ultimately. I don't think I could have fit as well into the world that Matt created as Rob did."
"When they tell you for the first time that it's not you, it's painful, but then you have to accept it as normality," Hoult continued. "I think that's probably a strength of mine as an actor as well. I can accept that they didn't cast me pretty well and when I see the chosen actor doing a great job, and I enjoy it, and it's good, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, they made the right choice. They knew what they were doing.'"
"It's not like I'm sitting there like, 'Oh, I'm not going to watch it now.' It's a good movie and Rob is brilliant in it."
We're sure another superhero project will eventually come the actor's way, and we can't help but wonder whether James Gunn would consider him for The Brave and the Bold's Batman.
Pattinson will return as his "Elseworlds" Bruce Wayne in The Batman II and, if recent rumours are to be believed, HBO Max's The Penguin as well.
Who do you think Hoult could play in the MCU or DCU?