I know you we hand picked by George Miller to play Batman in the Justice League film, is there anything you more you can tell us about what happened to that project?
I was so excited, that was supposed to be such an amazing project. George Miller was creating something that was spectacular. It was unlike anything anyone had seen.
When we went down to his production offices in Australia where we were there for two months training. You would walk in and see he had the entire film storyboarded around a room that is like four-times the size of this room. He had the entire film figured out in his head. They had pre-visualized all the fight sequences, they had done EVERYTHING.
So the actors were there as a last resort to step into what he had already created. So it was going to be one of the most epic comic book films out there. They were approaching this in such a different way, it was the psychology of it all.
He was really doing everything right, down to how he was having everyone trained. Like Batman, as being the only human in the Justice League with no superpowers he had to be the consummate martial artist and he had to earn his place there. He also had to have that analytical detective mind so I spent hours everyday working with the Australian special forces learning how to fight and think like a predator.
The guy that was playing Superman DJ Cotrona, his workout schedule was very different he was mostly doing power lifting and boxing to be strong and built like Superman. The guy playing the Flash Adam Brody was doing all rubber band work so he would be real twitchy and fast. Santiago Cabrera who was playing Aquaman, was being sent to northern Australia to swim with dolphins for hours a day so that he would be use to being in the sea with animals.
George was doing everything right and I really wish he to got to show everyone his vision.
What happened with that film? Because the production on it just stopped very abruptly, I wasnt aware it had actually gotten that far along into production.
Well there was the writers strike at the end of 2007 that really lurched the gears. That was a devastating hit for the movie I think, we were actually in the rehearsal phase when it all happened. So if there was a problem where this line doesnt really work the writers strike was on and no one can change it, because you dont have a writer here. It was difficult to work in that aspect.
So we kept training and the Australian government denied a tax rebate that they said was going to be available because there werent enough Australian actors in the film to qualify. There were several factors that all built up till it was too much, I think; it was a large budget at a precarious time.
