Legendary director Christopher Nolan has revealed that one of The Dark Knight trilogy’s most iconic lines (and some would argue, in Nolan’s entire filmography) still plagues him to this day… because he didn’t exactly write it.
Christopher Nolan is one of the last purists in cinema; a true cinephile, whose commitment to writing his own scripts and directing his own movies has demonstrated an unwavering approach to filmmaking, breaking away from the traditional norms of Hollywood’s trigger-happy special effects to create stories that grip and excite audiences.
For more than two decades, Nolan has released a celebrated filmography, bloated with cult classics, sci-fi epics and of course, one enduring trilogy… but the British filmmaker has confessed that one iconic line almost didn’t make it in.
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Speaking with Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy, Nolan confessed that he wasn’t entirely sold one of Gotham City’s District Attorney Harvey Dent’s lines after reading it in the original first draft.
“You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.”
Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight
At first, Nolan didn’t understand it, but over time, it has become one of the most memorable and quotable moments from the entire series.
It reminds me of when a musician releases a body of work – something I’ll admit happens less and less these days – but as the tracklist is finalised and the album’s released, the artist might not entirely know which song becomes the instant hit.
“I’m plagued by a line from The Dark Knight, and I’m plagued by it because I didn’t write it,” Nolan confessed to Deadline. “My brother [Jonathan] wrote it. It kills me, because it’s the line that most resonates. And at the time, I didn’t even understand it.”
“He says, ‘You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.’ I read it in his draft, and I was like, ‘All right, I’ll keep it in there, but I don’t really know what it means. Is that really a thing?’ And then, over the years since that film’s come out, it just seems truer and truer. In this story, it’s absolutely that. Build them up, tear them down. It’s the way we treat people.”