Were you Batman fans as kids? Did you buy the comics?
Morgan Freeman: “I grew up in the 30s and 40s and finished my childhood in the 50s, and I learned how to read from comic books. I recommend comic books, because after a while the pictures just aren’t enough and you’ve just got to know what they’re really saying.”
And Batman was part of that?
Freeman: “Yeah. Oh heavens, yeah.”
Gary Oldman: “Yeah, I read the comics as a kid, and I saw the TV show when I was little boy.”
[Freeman hums the theme from the 1960s Batman TV show]
How is this different from all the other Batman projects?
Freeman: “This Batman differs primarily in background. We know Batman now. We know what motivated him. We know what his drawback is. We know how he got to be that thing. And where all of his toys come from. We’re intimate with him now. He’s not just a mystery guy. He’s a mystery to everyone else, but we’re in on the secret, so we’re really empowered, I think.”
Oldman: “It answers all those questions that we’ve always asked. As Jack Nicholson said [in the 1989 Batman] ‘Where does he get those toys?’ You start thinking ‘Where did he get that car? Why is he a Batman? Why not Grasshopperman? Where’s the Batcave? How did that come about?’ And this–I found myself chuckling when he finds that waterfall, and you go ‘THE BATCAVE!!’ And you believe he could have that car.”
Freeman: “Yeah, because that car comes from a very definite place we know.”
Oldman: “It’s a real physical world, isn’t it? [Not like] that stupid thing toward the end of the other Batman, where he flicks a button and that car completely covers itself in metal. Ridiculous!”
Freeman: “‘Shields up.’ In Tim Burton’s.”
Oldman: “There are many things to this that I liked. I liked Chris Nolan’s pitch. He had a real vision. I thought ‘This guy really knows what movie he’s making.’ And then it was attractive to be part of that, and you’re in the company of some very distinguished actors, so that’s pretty good. I like to see my name on the titles next to Morgan Freeman’s. It’s nice company to be in, you know? And they PAID me. I’ve got kids and school’s expensive.”
Having been a comic book fan, how do you feel about seeing superheroes in a different medium?
Freeman: “I get off on it. Let me tell you: Superman [the first one]–a thrill. Just a thrill. If you remember the scene where he first shows up, this helicopter thing is going on and Clark Kent comes out of the Daily Planet, and he goes to go do his normal thing: we always see him running into a telephone booth. But they don’t do telephone booths anymore. There’s this really neat moment where he goes to this telephone stand and–oops, nope. And then he comes swooping around and somebody sees him and they go ‘Yo, Supe!’ It’s very today. I loved Dick Tracy. I thought Warren Beatty was perfect. Some critic, bless their heart, wrote that he was wooden. Like, duh!”
How would you explain the trend toward these huge comic book movies?
Freeman: “The trend is based on the same thing that every trend in Hollywood is based on: Does it make money?”
Oldman: “I have something to say about the trend of comic book things. I think there’s something sort of bigger going on. There’s a lot of tradition that we just don’t have anymore that I was a part of. Where is the next Tennessee Williams? Where is the next Arthur Miller? Where are these people? I come from the theater, where there was writing. There’s a whole generation of people coming up that are from MTV and have shot commercials and now are helming big movies who don’t have one idea of actually how to communicate to an actor because they’ve had no f***ing training. They don’t know how to do it. They’ve never read a play!”
But Christopher Nolan’s not in that category.
Oldman: “No. He’s not. I’m not grouping him in there.”
Freeman: “But your point is well taken.”
Oldman: “Well, I’ve spoken some rubbish in my time, and I’ve spoken some good stuff, too. I’m not talking about necessarily scripts, or scripts that I read, but I’m talking about culturally. It is disappearing. It evaporates. There’s a whole generation of people coming up, and you’re just getting further and further away.”
Do you see any parallels with what’s going on in this film, with the villain deciding to obliterate Gotham City, and what’s going on in contemporary society with the threat of terrorism?
Oldman: “I think Gotham is really like America. People getting on with their business, pretending something isn’t there. The bad guy, for whatever mysterious reason, wants to blow f***ing Gotham up.”
Freeman: “But these guys are vigilantes. They’re the ones who said they sacked Rome when Rome obviously became the place Caligula and Nero were running. They sacked Constantinople. Countries get to big for their britches, so to speak, and they become bastions of evil, to use that term, this League of Shadows. Batman is actually running interference for the people of Gotham City.”
Is this the end of your tour of duty in Gotham City, or is it just the beginning?
Freeman: “It was a really good experience and a fabulous movie. So I’m always looking for work! I can stop right there.”
Oldman: “I guess I’ll return as Jim Gordon if they make another one.”
Freeman: “When.”
Oldman: “When they make another one. It’d be nice if Chris would do it, wouldn’t it?”
Freeman: “They can’t do it without Chris doing it. They cannot do it.”
