#George Clooney Claims That Watching Batman & Robin Physically Hurts Him

George Clooney is not changing his mind about starring in 1997’s Batman & Robin. After previously declaring that the movie is “terrible,” Clooney is now saying that it “physically hurts” him to watch the movie. The actor has not been shy about his displeasure with the movie over the years, but it seems that he has really doubled down on his past comments, going as far as to say that he was “terrible” in the movie. While Batman is a major franchise right now, it almost wasn’t because of how weird Batman & Robin turned out.

In a new interview with Howard Stern, George Clooney spoke about his experience on the set of Batman & Robin. “I couldn’t have done that one differently,” Clooney said when Stern asked about the project. “It’s a big machine, that thing. You have to remember at that point, I was just an actor getting an acting job. I wasn’t the guy who could greenlight a movie.” Clooney wasn’t yet the leading man that he is today, but Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played Mr. Freeze in the movie, definitely was.
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As for working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Batman & Robin, George Clooney says they never once even met on the set. “We never even saw each other,” Clooney said. “It’s a big, monster machine, and I just sort of jumped in and did what they said.” Although they appear on screen together, it was just some clever editing, according to Clooney, who earned $1 million to take over for Val Kilmer. Schwarzenegger pulled down a cool $25 million for his performance in the movie.

When it comes to placing the blame on why Batman & Robin was not so enjoyable, George Clooney is not pointing fingers at anyone specifically. Instead, he’s taking the whole crew down with him. “The truth of the matter is, I was bad in it. Akiva Goldsman – who’s won the Oscar for writing since then – he wrote the screenplay. And it’s a terrible screenplay, he’ll tell you. I’m terrible in it, I’ll tell you. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work.’ We all whiffed on that one.” Schumacher talked about “whiffing” it on Batman & Robin quite a bit before his death. Clooney was so scarred by the experience that he even told Ben Affleck to avoid it.

Elsewhere in the interview, George Clooney opens up about his pranks that he plays on his fellow actors. Brad Pitt is one of his favorite targets, and it appears that the two are in a prank war that would make Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman blush. Regardless, Clooney does not like to watch Batman & Robin these days, and it sounds like he was never a big fan of the movie, which many DC fans find understandable. You can check out the interview with Clooney above, thanks to The Howard Stern Show YouTube channel.

Topics: Batman and Robin, Batman