Nicholas Hoult was destined for the DC Universe, but before landing the role of Lex Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman, he suffered an “emotional blow” when he found out he wasn’t going to star in Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
In a new interview, the Skins alum opened up about discovering Robert Pattinson was landing the role of The Dark Knight.
“I remember a week before we did the Batman test, I was driving in my car and I had the radio on and they were talking on the radio about how Rob was going to be the new Batman,” Hoult recalled on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “And I was like, ‘It’s not confirmed yet! I’m auditioning next weekend. Like, give me a chance.’”
Pattinson went on to star in The Batman, which was released in 2022. A sequel to the DC film is set to be released in 2026. Losing out on the role for Hoult was difficult for the actor saying, “It’s an emotional blow.”
“Your imagination does not know … you are aware on a practical level: ‘I know I am auditioning against Rob.’ And Rob is fantastic in that movie,” Hoult continued. “That was the right decision. But you get excited by the prospect. Matt [Reeves] is a fantastic director and the script. It’s a cool movie and I want to be a part of it. It’s a brilliant character. There’s a weird period before you can get to the acceptance and see the movie and be like that was the right choice, you go through the period of ‘what could I have done different? Why not me?’ You run through all those things.”
Hoult would later go on to audition for the Superman role in the James Gunn reboot, which ultimately went to David Corenswet. Gunn would eventually cast Hoult in the Lex Luthor role and his audition process was different after the director discovered what happened in The Batman.
“James Gunn is such a fantastic director and I was so excited by what he was building at DC,” Hoult said. “When we spoke…because they knew I had been through [the Batman] process, they didn’t want me to necessarily have to go through that again. That was very kind of them. There was an element of them being like, ‘We like you as an actor. We want you to be in this world.’”
Watch Hoult’s full interview below.