Pierce Brosnan says he didn’t get the role in Tim Burton’s Batman after he made a dumb joke

Pierce Brosnan, like Dwayne Johnson, is making his debut in the superhero genre as the two co-star in this fall’s Black Adam. Brosnan found great success in franchise films starring as Ian Fleming’s 007 James Bond in four movies starting with 1995’s Goldeneye. That was his second chance at being Bond after his first chance was thwarted by his television series at the time, Remington Steele.

IndieWire now reports that playing Dr. Fate in Black Adam is, again, a second chance at playing a masked hero with a cape as Brosnan reveals he went out for Tim Burton’s Batman released back in 1989. Brosnan, while promoting Black Adam tells of his audition with the director,

I went up for Batman way back in the day when Tim Burton was doing it. Obviously, I didn’t get the job. I remember saying something stupid to Tim Burton. I said, ‘You know I can’t understand any man who would wear his underpants outside his trousers.’ But there you go. The best man got the job.”

When Michael Keaton was cast, there was an uproar from fans that would eventually serve as a precursor to the internet, as people continuously wrote to the Warner Bros studio begging for them to recast as they thought the comedic actor meant it wasn’t going to be taken seriously. Keaton knew the score, though, saying in the Backstage podcast, “To me, I know the name of the movie is Batman, and it’s hugely iconic and very cool … and because of Tim Burton, artistically iconic, [but] I knew from the get-go it was Bruce Wayne. That was the secret. I never talked about it. [Everyone would say] Batman, Batman, Batman does this, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Y’all are thinking wrong here.’ [It’s all about] Bruce Wayne. What kind of person does that?…Who becomes that?”

Brosnan can be seen as Dr. Fate in Black Adam in theaters on October 21.