Pierce Brosnan has revealed that he turned down the opportunity to play the lead in Tim Burton’s Batman.
The former James Bond star said during a Reddit AMA session that he passed on the role of Bruce Wayne because he couldn’t take it seriously.
“I went and met with Tim Burton for the role of Batman,” he said. “But I just couldn’t really take it seriously, any man who wears his underpants outside his pants just cannot be taken seriously. That was my foolish take on it. It was a joke, I thought. But how wrong was I?
“Don’t get me wrong, because I love Batman, and I grew up on Batman. As a kid in Ireland, we used to get our raincoats and tie them round our neck and swing through the bicycle shed…”
The role of Batman eventually went to Michael Keaton, who completed a second stint as the Dark Knight in 1992’s Batman Returns.
Brosnan did go on to collaborate with Burton, playing professor Donald Kessler in science-fiction comedy Mars Attacks! in 1996.