George Clooney has always had a reputation for being one of Hollywood’s most notorious practical jokers, so there was bound to be some mischief when the actor and filmmaker directed Ben Affleck on literary adaptation The Tender Bar, with both of them having famously played Batman.
Joel Schumacher’s Caped Crusader has already blamed Zack Snyder’s Dark Knight for ruining the franchise he put so much effort into building, and even named himself as the best big screen Batman there’s ever been, which a statement he’s made abundantly clear over the last two decades he doesn’t believe in the slightest.
In a new interview with Deadline, Clooney even revealed that once he discovered 10 year-old child star Daniel Ranieri was a genuine fan of his performance, he coached the youngster to publicly praise him as much as possible in the hopes that it would irritate Affleck.
“Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I literally gave him media coaching, before he did his interview, to talk about how much he liked me as Batman. I was like, ‘You got to tell them. Now remember, when you get asked about it you just got to say, I really loved George as Batman’. You know, which I thought would get to Ben.”
Affleck will be returning as Batman for a fourth time in The Flash, setting a record for live-action appearances as the iconic comic book character. Clooney won’t even let his wife watch his only appearance under the cape and cowl, so it would be an understatement to say they’ve experienced mixed fortunes.