Pierce Brosnan met with Tim Burton for the role of the Caped Crusader in the director’s popular Batman series, but turned it down as he just couldn’t “take it seriously”.

The 007 star made the admission as part of a Reddit AMA and admitted it was clearly his lack of vision that was the problem rather than the director’s pitch.

“I went and met with Tim Burton for the role of Batman,” he revealed. “But I just couldn’t really take it seriously, any man who wears his underpants outside his pants just cannot be taken seriously. That was my foolish take on it. It was a joke, I thought. But how wrong was I? Don’t get me wrong, because I love Batman, and I grew up on Batman. As a kid in Ireland, we used to get our raincoats and tie them round our neck and swing through the bicycle shed…”

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