The Hobbit star Richard Armitage auditioned for Batman before Ben Affleck landed the part

London: The Hobbit actor Richard Armitage has revealed he was on the shortlist to play Batman before Ben Affleck landed the part.

The 46-year-old actor told Digital Spy that he tested for the part of Batman and made it to the final “five or six” – with Affleck eventually playing the Dark Knight in DC’s latest films.

“There was a little flurry once upon a time just after I’d come out of The Hobbit where I auditioned for Batman. It was at the same time that Christian Bale was leaving, there were about five or six actors that were in line for that character so I went through quite a process with that,” Armitage said.

“The sort of darker side of a man, and the desire to right some wrongs… I think it’s really interesting, that character Bruce Wayne,” he added.

Armitage may not have played a superhero onscreen but he did get to feature as the X-Men’s Wolverine last year in Marvel’s first-ever scripted podcast Wolverine: The Long Night.

“It was pretty amazing. I started to look at some of the movies, and then I decided to go really to the comic book and to the scripts that they’d written,” he said.