Nolan Kept His Iconic Ra's al Ghul in the Dark While Filming: 'I Didn't Know I Was in the Movie!'
Liam Neeson’s Ra's al Ghul made an unexpected appearance in The Dark Knight Rises… But the actor himself had no clue what movie he was playing in!
Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins was immaculate, and Liam Neeson’s performance was largely praised. The villain turned out equally threatening, sophisticated, witty, and mysterious — even despite the complete background story of his relationship with Bruce Wayne shown in the first part of the movie.
After Batman Begins was done, no one was really expecting Ra's al Ghul’s return. It took another movie and a half to see him again, and the audience that was already completely distracted by Joker and Bane was incredibly surprised to see Neeson’s appearance in the finale of the trilogy. This was a smart move by Nolan…
…But apparently, it was not just the general public that was surprised to learn that Ra's al Ghul was back in The Dark Knight Rises — Liam Neeson was even more shocked to learn that he’d starred in yet another Dark Knight installment!
“[Nolan] takes it to another extreme — I didn’t know I was in the movie! <...> I went and shot a scene for two hours with Christian Bale. There was a set, and Christian was tied up. I said, ‘Chris, what am I doing?’ [Nolan said:] ‘Um… Well, just walk forward, and say the lines, walk back, and that’ll be it, really.’ I said, ‘What the f*ck? Tell me the story!’ [Nolan replied:] ‘Um… I’d prefer not to, really,’” the actor shared.
Neeson was understandably frustrated with the director’s secrecy, and it even got in the way of the movie’s marketing. The Ra's al Ghul actor revealed that people kept coming to him and saying how cool it was that he’d returned to Batman, and he was just confused, telling everyone that he wasn’t, in fact, in the movie.
Truly, that was an… Interesting decision on Christopher Nolan ’s part, keeping one of his actors — one of his lead villain actors! — in the dark about the movie and the role he was playing. Things worked out in the end, but we highly doubt Liam Neeson was feeling too happy about being treated like part of the equipment.
Source: Hollywood (via The Playlist)