Tom Hiddleston has been a mainstay in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since he first appeared as Loki in 2011’s Thor. Even after his original incarnation of the God of Mischief was killed by Thanos at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, he’s continued on as a Loki variant who’s now maintaining the infinite branches of the MCU’s multiverse. So for someone who’s been attached to Marvel so long, it’s surprising that he attributes a classic DC movie to being cast as Loki.
During his interview on a recent episode of Happy Sad Confused, Hiddleston shared that Tom Holland is his favorite Spider-Man actor, but also acknowledged that “we’re all kind of here because of Tobey Maguire, in a way,” referring to how 2002’s Spider-Man helped make the superhero genre a staple in Hollywood. Then host Josh Horowitz asked the Loki actor what the best comic book movie of all time is that he’s not in, and he answered:
Batman, directed by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. That’s my first instinct. That’s what comes to mind.
While Batman came out over a decade before superhero movies started becoming commonplace, it too took pop culture by storm by pushing Gotham City’s Caped Crusader, and the genre as a whole, in a more serious direction. Michael Keaton donned the cape and cowl a little over two decades after the campy and comical Batman TV series ran for three seasons, and his Bruce Wayne clashed with Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Author John Jackson Miller, who wrote the tie-in books Batman: Resurrection and Batman: Revolution, even described Tim Burton’s Batman as “the most important comic book movie ever made” to me last October.
Tom Hiddleston was especially impressed by Jack Nicholson’s take on Joker, whom we first meet in Batman as gangster Jack Napier and is revealed to be the man who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents. As Hiddleston explained below, this performance was on his mind when he began playing Loki:
Truthfully, I don’t think I would’ve played Loki without that film. The way Jack Nicholson played the Joker was so — at the time in my life when I saw it, It made such an impact on my imagination. I understood he was the villain, but he was having such a good time. That could describe somebody else I know. And he was so charismatic, and he was so inventive, and so free. But I also loved Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne and Batman, and I loved their dynamic. And I think, probably, when I came to play Loki for the first time, I consciously carried Jack Nicholson in my mind.
Regardless of where you rank Batman among the other live-action Batman movies, there’s no denying that it is indeed one of the most influential comic book movies, and that Jack Nicholson’s Joker remains one of the most popular portrayal of DC Comics’ Clown Prince of Crime. Tim Burton and Michael teamed up again for 1992’s Batman Returns, then they both departed what would become Batman Forever, which saw Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer succeeding them as director and lead actor, respectively. Decades later, Keaton reprised his Batman for The Flash and also shot scenes for the shelved Batgirl movie.
These days, Robert Pattinson is holding down the Dark Knight mantle in The Batman franchise, and a separate Batman is set to be introduced to the DC Universe shared continuity in The Brave and the Bold. Over in the MCU, Tom Hiddleston will return as Loki when Avengers: Doomsday arrives to the 2026 movies schedule on December 18.
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