Why Freeman chose Batman
2005-05-30 13:07
Tokyo - Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, who has played characters from a chauffeur to God, says he chose Batman as his first major action movie because, at root, the superhero is a human.
"Batman was my favourite superhero as a kid, because he didn't have super strength. He was just a guy who trained all the time," Freeman told a news conference on Monday in Tokyo.
Freeman, fresh from his Oscar as a former boxer in Clint Eastwood's boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, plays in Batman Begins as Lucius Fox, the CEO who in the Batman comics had a magic touch to help failing businesses.
The movie was also a first for Liam Neeson, who is playing a villain in his role as Batman's early mentor Henri Ducard.
But the Oscar-nominated star of Schindler's List disagreed with Freeman on Batman's place in the pantheon of superheroes.
"As a boy Batman was always a bit scary. I couldn't say why. He wasn't my favourite superhero. Superman was," Neeson said.
Neeson's first chance as a 'bad guy'
Neeson said he took the role because it was the first time he was asked to "be a bad guy".
Freeman joked the change of role could also be lucrative.
"I was never asked to play in a big action movie. I remembered Alec Guinness saying that when he performed in Star Wars he made more money he ever earned in his entire life. So I said okay," Freeman said to laughter.
Batman Begins, which relates the early days of the action hero who is played by Christian Bale, holds its world premiere on Tuesday in Tokyo for the media.
The movie also stars leading Japanese actor Ken Watanabe of Last Samurai fame playing Batman nemesis Ra's Al Ghul. It goes on to worldwide release June 15 and to general theatres in Japan on June 18.