🚨 Warning: There are MASSIVE — and I mean super massive — spoilers ahead for The Batman. 🚨
The Batman officially hit theaters this past weekend, and I'm going to be honest, it might be one of my favorite Batman movies of all time.
Between the amazing cast and director Matt Reeves' vision, The Batman is a beautifully filmed and brilliantly told comic book movie, and all I want to do is talk about it.
Now, I can go on and on about why Robert Pattinson is the perfect emo Batman, how amazing Zoë Kravitz is as Catwoman, and more. But what I really want to talk about right now is Barry Keoghan's small mystery role that comes at the very end of the movie.
In case you don't know, Barry Keoghan is an outstanding Irish actor who has appeared in movies like Dunkirk, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and most recently, he starred as Druig in Marvel's Eternals.
If you're a fan of Barry's work, you were probably so excited that he was going to be in The Batman, but if you're looking for him, chances are you might miss him. However, if you know the sound of his voice, you probably jumped out of your seat, like me.
Barry's only scene in The Batman comes at the very end of the film, when Riddler, played perfectly by Paul Dano, has been locked up in Arkham Asylum. While there, he starts chatting with an unnamed inmate who tells Riddler, "What is it they say? One day you're on top. The next, you’re a clown." Then, the duo starts hysterically laughing.
If you're a Batman fan — or, let's be honest, anyone who has ever interacted with a comic book or superhero movie — then you probably figured out that Barry's "Unseen Arkham Inmate" is likely Joker, and you'd be right. In an interview with Variety, director Matt Reeves officially confirmed the mysterious inmate's identity, saying, "You're right. It is the Joker."
Having the Joker already be in Arkham when we meet Robert Pattinson's version of Batman perfectly added to Matt Reeves' vision for The Batman and how it's a movie where Batman is already established. It's not an origin story.
"I thought it'd be really neat if so much of the fabric of Gotham just already existed," Matt told Variety. "And it was like an old Warner Bros. gangster movie and if you took a certain turn, you might see a character in his origins."
While his one scene is epic, it turns out that Barry Keoghan was originally meant to have a slightly larger role in The Batman. In fact, his first scene was going to come way earlier in the film.
In an early cut of The Batman, there was going to be a scene where Batman shows up at Arkham after the Gotham City police commissioner is murdered. Matt Reeves described it as a Mindhunter-like moment where Batman tries to get into the mind of a villain in order to figure out Riddler's next move.
Matt detailed the moment to Entertainment Weekly, saying, "Because the movie is a serial killer story and I wanted Batman to be going down all these back alleys, I wanted him to turn to another serial killer in Arkham because he was so unsettled about why [the Riddler] would be writing him [and] he's trying to profile the character."
Matt continued, saying, "He meets this character who is the unseen prisoner [played by Barry Keoghan]. Over the course of the thing, you have a sinking suspicion about who this might be. It's a version of this character that is not yet the character we come to know."
Ultimately, Matt decided the scene "wasn't necessary" and it was cut from the final version of The Batman. However, he loves the moment so much that he has already thought about releasing it in the future.
After cutting Barry's first scene, Matt also toyed with the idea of cutting the final moment between Riddler and Joker, which we do see in the final cut. He decided to keep it in because it allowed for a final emotional moment for Riddler and it connected to Selina telling Bruce, "This place is never going to change" before she leaves Gotham.
Also, Barry's two scenes as Joker that were filmed always featured his face being obstructed and out of focus in order to keep the mystery surrounding his character alive. Matt Reeves said they worked with prosthetic makeup artist Michael Marino to develop Joker's full look, even though it wasn't shown.
Another interesting fact about Barry's unconventional reveal as Joker was that Matt Reeves and the team elected to keep Barry's casting a secret as much as possible. In fact, Barry was announced as playing a totally different character and they even filmed fake scenes.
In 2020, Barry was revealed to be playing Gotham City police officer Stanley Merkel, and leaked set photos even showed him filming scenes dressed as a cop. In an interview with IGN, Matt Reeves explained the fake-out, saying, "This idea of making [Barry] Stanley Merkel was exactly that, because the police force is actually a big part of the story so it seemed credible that we could be doing that."
If you're like me, though, and you desperately want to SEE Barry as Joker at some point, it doesn't sound like it's 100% in the plan for a potential The Batman sequel. Matt explained to Variety that Barry's one scene was not meant to set up a future movie, saying, "It's not an Easter egg scene. It's not one of those end credits Marvel or DC scenes where it’s going, like, 'Hey, here's the next movie!' In fact, I have no idea when or if we would return to that character in the movies."
If you've seen The Killing of a Sacred Deer, then you probably know that Barry would absolutely CRUSH playing Joker, and I do hope we get to see him in this role in some way. Matt Reeves even alluded to exploring Arkham in a possible HBO Max series.
Basically, I'm obsessed with The Batman and I'm also obsessed with Barry Keoghan finally becoming a household name. I'm so excited to (hopefully) see him in the Batman Cinematic Universe again.
