Barry Keoghan, the surprise Joker in The Batman, had quite the horror show when it came to getting into character. The process of putting on his makeup was more painful than a thousand stabbings with a steel thing, according to Keoghan himself.
It took a whopping six hours to transform into the uniquely weird Joker, and let’s just say Keoghan did not enjoy being a human canvas for that long. In fact, the metal staples used in his makeup were so uncomfortable that they almost left him with permanent scars. Ouch!
In a recent video with GQ, Keoghan revealed the agony of the makeup process, saying, “That took six hours to get into that, and it was like oh man, I couldn’t sit still for six hours. I really couldn’t. I remember we were around five hours in, and I went ‘We’re shutting production down, there’s COVID.’ I was like ‘Huh? Really? What? What happened?’ There was this steel thing that went [into my cheek] and it was like slicing in. I was like, I’m really going to be left with a scar here.”
So, while Keoghan’s Joker has been praised for its weird and unique look, it seems the transformation process was a real pain in the…cheek. Here’s hoping that if Keoghan reprises his role in The Batman 2, the makeup team can find a way to speed up the process and spare his poor face from further agony.
As for the future of Robert Pattinson’s Batman series, things are still pretty murky. The first movie ended with Batman apprehending the Riddler, who has flooded Gotham City, but details about Part II are as scarce as a Bat in broad daylight. Matt Reeves is co-writing the script of the sequel with Mattson Tomlin, so we can only hope for more dark and brooding Batman goodness.
And for all you Bat-fans out there, mark your calendars (or Bat-signal, whichever you prefer) because The Batman: Part II is set to hit theaters in October 2025, as revealed by the heads of DC Studios. The first movie made a whopping $770.8 million at the worldwide box office, making it the seventh highest-grossing movie of 2022. Holy box office success, Batman!
