William Fitchner Looks Back On His Opening Scene In The Dark Knight!

The opening scene of The Dark Knight is seriously tense. How was it to film?

"It was the first two days of principal photography, and Chris Nolan, when he asked me to play the part, explained what he was doing and how he was going to shoot it with an IMAX camera. But what I'll always remember about those two days is that he had all the folks he works with, on all his movies, and the special effects guys who were all Brits, and the sound people he works with all the time, and when we rehearsed walking through the bank and firing the shotgun, the special effects guys were like, "Just tell us where you'd like to fire the gun and we'll take care of the rest." When it came time to shoot the scene, they turned on the IMAX camera - which turns out sounds like a blender crossed with a can opener, it's so loud - and then when I started to shoot the gun, it was so loud. On the first take, everywhere I pointed the gun something exploded. Obviously I knew there were no real bullets in there, but if I hadn't I'd have wondered."

"As loud as that camera was I never did any looping on that film because the sound guys were so amazing, the special effects guys were so amazing, because the filmmaking was just on the highest level of anything I've been involved with. Not to mention the fact that Chris is one of the finest filmmakers working today, and it's a pleasure to work with him."

It was a pleasant surprise to see your Heat-inspired cameo in Dark Knight. What is Christopher Nolan like as a director? And what do you think of the three main American superheroes – Batman, Spiderman, and now Superman – being played by Brits?

"I have no problem having any actor from anywhere play a role. I'm excited for any actor that gets a job, I truly am. Even if it's a role that I'm up for and I don't get it, I never begrudge any actor having it work out for them. Life's tough enough in this business, and at the end of the day I hope that everybody does an amazing job because then it's really worth watching."