The Batman: Matt Reeves Reveals Paul Dano Wanted To Retry One Scene Around 200 Times

As Matt Reeves’ newest movie The Batman movie is getting closer, more and more interesting stuff and information about it are being revealed. A lot of interesting stuff have already been revealed about the main actors and the future that this movie is going to set up for the DC universe.

Now, director Matt Reeves shared some information on how the production of the movie went, and he took the chance to praise Paul Dano, who plays the movie’s main villain — Edward Nashton, also known as the Riddler, a serial killer who targets elite citizens of Gotham City. FYI, the next paragraph features some minor spoilers.

During the shooting of a scene in which the Riddler is talking to Batman through a cellphone, Dano wanted to express Riddler’s madness in the best (or worst, if you prefer it that way) possible way so he asked a director to redo the scene around 200 days. Jeez, what a long that must’ve been for Reeves. Still, Reeves praised Dano’s commitment to the role, and the reviewers who have seen the movie already have praised Dano’s performance.

“He goes, ‘OK, let me try one where I’m off camera and I stick my head in,’ ‘Let me try one where I’m already sitting there.’ He’s directing this one-person play on an iPhone. It was the giddiness that really got to me. Calling out the passing time, like he was a game show host. He was so inventive and creative. He’s also very critical of himself.” — Matt Reeves for The Hollywood Reporter

Paul Dano portrayed the second Riddler on the big screen, and the first one in this century. The last actor who played the Riddler on the big screen was Jim Carrey in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, and Cory Michael Smith played the character in Bruno Heller’s TV series Gotham between 2014 and 2019.