The Batman: Matt Reeves on the film’s surprising cameo

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Batman. Consider yourself warned. After much anticipation and several pandemic-related delays, The Batman is finally playing in theaters. The film is already well on the way to becoming a huge success and there’s plenty to unpack from The Dark Knight’s latest adventure. We see plenty of familiar characters pop up in The Batman but there’s one cameo that’s sure to keep fan’s talking.

If you’re still with us, you’ll know that none other than the Clown Prince of Crime shows up at the end of the film to befriend Riddler. As had been rumoured, Barry Keogan (Eternals) plays the Joker in this scene, although he’s credited as Unseen Arkham Prisoner. The actor was previously reported to be playing Gotham City Police Department Officer Stanley Merkel, and The Batman director Matt Reeves told IGN that they had shot more scenes of Keoghan beyond the final cameo.

The scene that was not in the movie, the scene that this is really the companion to, which is actually a really cool scene that will release at some point, it’s a scene where Batman is so unnerved because the Riddler is writing to him. And he’s like, ‘Well, why is this guy writing to me?’ And he figures he’s got to profile this killer. He goes to see another killer that he’s clearly had an experience with in these first two years. And this killer in this story is not yet the character that we come to know, right? So everybody’s in their infancy. So in the comics, these characters often declare their alter egos in response to the fact that there’s a Batman out there. And so here, we have a Joker who’s not yet the Joker.

Although we don’t see much of Barry Keogan’s proto-Joker, a lot of thought went into the makeup design by Mike Marino. Matt Reeves said that he wanted this iteration of the Joker to feel “distinctive and new” but took inspiration from the original roots of the character. “In the scene that you’ll see in the future, you’ll see that we worked on what he looked like,” Reeves said. “And he’s held in this very suspenseful way, away from you visually. But I wanted to create an iteration of him that felt distinctive and new, but went right back to the roots. So he’s very much out of the Conrad Veidt mold and that idea of the silent film of The Man Who Laughs.” It’s not clear whether or not we’ll see Barry Keogan’s Joker in The Batman sequel, but there have been plenty of villain ideas brought up by the cast and crew already, including Mr. Freeze and the Court of Owls.

The Batman is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check out reviews from our own Chris Bumbray and JimmyO and let us know what you thought of the film as well.