I have a feeling I may have proposed here before, but I was thinking of possible real life inspirations for some of Batman's villains, and thought of some for the Mad Hatter.
When I was a kid, there was a kids birthday party room called The Mad Hatter's Tea Room. It was the brainchild of a local real estate developer named Harry Stinson. The main concept behind the place was no rules, no adults allowed. If that sounds sketchy, it was.
While I never went, my sister did, and it was the type of place I'd often hear about on the school yard. Years later I'd discover the place was actually not nearly as magical a place as I thought it was, and more like a ratchet Chuck E. Cheese, usually found in seedy strip malls. Kids were picked up in a "limo" (in actuality, an old hearse), the staff were made up of surely teenagers, and one of the activities included "shopping cart" bumper cars. A common description of The Mad Hatter was that it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
But this is my idea for the Mad Hatter. Instead of the going the obvious route with him being another serial killer, I'd make him a seedy club owner, with a club and image based on Alice in Wonderland. Think club kid, Michael Alig, meets Steve Rubell, Studio 54 meets 90's rave scene. I don't see him being the lead villain in any movie, but I could see him being a regular, possibly on the Penguin show. In fact, I could see him being a possible rival to Penguin, on the club scene.
Samuel Blenkin is an actor who recently appeared on
Atlanta, and he has the type of looks that come to mind when I think of the Hatter.