Continuing his point, director Zack Snyder clarified that his preferred interpretation of Batman is one that emphasizes his physicality and spoke at length about how impressed he was with Ben Affleck’s physique, which lent itself to a more terrifying Batman.
When asked by Rogan if Batman has a towering presence in the source material, the “Watchmen” director gushed about Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” discussing how the comic highlights just how huge and monstrous The Caped Crusader can be. “If you look at ‘Dark Knight Returns,’ there’s a line where he’s trying to hold someone’s gun, and his finger can’t get in the trigger guard because he’s so big,” Snyder said, adding, “I like things like that. He has this genetic gift of just being this big f****** dude.” In the same conversation with Rogan, Snyder also discussed why he ignored Batman’s no-kill rule in his DC movies.
While chatting with Men’s Journal in 2021, Affleck discussed how he worked overtime to ensure that he was in shape to bring Snyder’s vision to life. “I knew that a big part of the audience’s expectation around the role would be how I looked physically,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to fail in the eyes of the audience because of laziness. For his take on Batman, Affleck gained north of 20 pounds to step into the Dark Knight’s shoes.
