Christopher Nolan recently sat down with Film.com and gave an excellent and extensive interview, covering different aspects of his profession and career. Here are the Bat related pointers pulled from the interview. Thanks to CBM for the heads up.
On what drew him to Batman:
"I think I was interested in Batman because he's not a superhero with superpowers. He's an ordinary man who does a lot of push-ups. His money is his superpower, but he's a real man driven by film noir motivations that I love -- revenge. There are so many things you can do with that range. We're about to begin our third film, simply because I find him such an interesting character."
How he got involved with the franchise:
"Well, my agent called me up and said Warner Bros. knew they wanted to do something with Batman, but they didn't know what. Darren Aronofsky had been developing Batman: Year One for a while, but wanted it to be rated R and Warner Bros. didn't think they could do that. When I thought about what hadn't been done, it was an epic telling of his origin story. What I pitched the studio was what Richard Donner had done with Superman in '78. Tim Burton had done his version [Batman] in his own idiosyncratic, gothic way, but the origin story of an ordinary world with Batman, this extraordinary character, in it, is what interested me."
Christian Bale as Batman:
"I liked Christian a lot in American Psycho. He was mesmerizing and terrifying. But if you watch it again, you realize how funny it is. How funny he is in it. I had a great conversation with him at a restaurant. He'd only drink coffee, no food. I didn't notice it immediately, but you could see his ribs from behind. He had lost all his weight for The Machinist. I left the meeting thinking, 'This guy is Bruce Wayne.' He understood incredible dedication to something. My big fear about him was that he'd want to be this 90-pound Batman. But he got the weight back on, then muscle. It was like a 100-pound swing."
Practical Effects vs. CGI:
"We try to do as much in camera as we can. Even if there will be effects enhancement, we try to still get a lot in the frame. I think the audience has an innate ability to tell the difference between what's shot and what's animated. I don't think that's ever going to go away."
Did he immediately plan a sequel to Batman Begins:
"Not immediately. We saw Batman Begins as a stand-alone film. The Joker card was just an exciting way to say it could carry on. But as the film came out, I just became fascinated by seeing that character in this world."
Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight:
"I think we had left ourselves with a pretty interesting jumping off point [with Batman Begins]. What was fascinating is that I got to cast Heath without him having read the script. His interest was based on conversations about the character of the Joker and what he would relate to as a force of anarchy. I watched the movie again recently, as we get ready to go into the third, and I really think the second half was a white-knuckle ride just driven by the unpredictability of Heath. What he figured out about the Joker in his performance that we never discussed is that unpredictability. You never knew where his performance was going to go, what he was going to do next."
Anne Hathaway as Catwoman:
"Selena Kyle. Yeah, that's going to be fun."
As Selena Kyle, Not Her Alter-Ego Catwoman?
[He answers with closed-lips, unwilling to say more, though he is willing to laugh about his silence]
To read more head on over to Film.com.
