Alfred actor Andy Serkis talks about his process with Alfred in The Batman as well as how he almost couldn’t make it for the sequel.
In an interview with Josh Horwitz, the actor talks about how Alfred is a little bit different from other incarnations. He feels that while he plays a father figure to Bruce Wayne, but he is lacks certain paternal instincts that makes him a truly warm parent.
The tragedy of the character is that now Alfred sees Bruce becoming Batman and feels the guilt of not raising him to be emotionally healthier.
“I mean, I wanted Alfred to… you know, actually [director] Matt [Reeves] and I were really investigating the role of the father figure, you know, and what that is in real life to us. He has his version. I certainly have mine. I had a very distant father, and my own kind of feelings of being a father and being sort of separated from my family a lot due to work. So that was the thing. Alfred represented a sort of… he had a lack of paternal instinct but wanted it, but couldn’t ever get there. And at the moment of greatest need for Bruce, you know, he wasn’t there for his parents. And so he was carrying that guilt.”
“And it was just the desire to try… I think there’s a real desire to make amends for that, which is what their connection was. He could teach him skills, he could teach him things that he’d learned. I wanted him to feel like he was once in the SAS, did work for private military companies, did end up becoming private security for the upper echelons, and then ending up obviously working for Wayne Enterprises. So I wanted him grounded in being a soldier who had worked his way up into a position where he could teach physical skills to young Bruce, but not emotional skills.”
Andy Serkis as Alfred is slightly more gruff than his comic book counterpart. He is not nearly as emotionally ready and tends to be very involved in Bruce’s crusade in a professional level. Only when he was caught in the Riddler’s explosion did Alfred show emotional vulnerability to Bruce.
Andy Serkis and His Filming Schedule
Andy Serkis himself has nothing but praise for The Batman Part II. However, he warned how he had the filming conflicts with other projects. This conflict almost led him to not return for the sequel.
“It’s amazing. It’s a great script, it really is. And again, I’m not going to say anything whatsoever about it. And actually, the great thing is I’m going to be able to do it because we figured the schedule out, you know. So it’s going to be tight, but we’ll get there.”
We’re glad you made it, Andy!
The Batman Part II will start production in Summer 2026 and will hit theaters on October 1, 2027.
Source: comicbookmovie.com
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