Sean Young is famous for her roles in Blade Runner and David Lynch’s Dune. Considering her presence in such influential movies, it’s a little difficult to imagine her in any other roles. However, what some Sean Young fans may not know is that she was originally cast as Vicki Vale in Tim Burton’s Batman, but had to drop out following a horse-riding accident. When Warner Bros. held auditions for the role of Catwoman in Batman Returns, Young jumped at the chance and showed her enthusiasm for the character.
While Young did audition, it didn’t exactly work out in her favor; the Catwoman role famously went to Michelle Pfeiffer. In the 2005 documentary Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight, Warner Bros. executive Mark Canton claimed that Young went into the audition room with a bit too much energy. “My office door flew open, which says a lot about how different security is these days,” Canton said, “and Michael Keaton and I saw Sean Young dressed as Catwoman leap over my sofa and say, ‘I am Catwoman!’ We looked at each other and went, ‘Whoa.'”
The role of Catwoman didn’t go to Young as a result of this, and when the rumors of Michelle Pfeiffer taking on the role started to spread, Young didn’t take the news well. This resulted in her appearance on The Joan Rivers Show in March 1991, dressed in full Catwoman garb and entering with a campy monologue, which was more in line with the 1966 Adam West Batman series, aimed at Burton.
Young’s monologue specifically called Burton out for refusing to meet with her and ignoring her calls and even blames him for her horse-riding injury. Although Canton never mentioned Young auditioning in front of Burton in Shadows of the Bat, he did clearly state that she auditioned for the role and wasn’t offered the part. The way Young worded her monologue on The Joan Rivers Show implied that she wanted to audition but Burton refused to see her, which contradicts other accounts of her attempt to get the part of Catwoman.
The rest of her appearance on The Joan Rivers Show includes Young and Rivers suggesting that Pfeiffer could get into a car accident to lose the role of Catwoman and joking about mailing a bomb to Burton. Recordings of Young and her husband getting on a plane to see Burton and her frustration when she was turned away were also shown on the talk show.
While it is clear that Young was disappointed that she didn’t get the role in Batman Returns and was still upset about having to leave the cast of Burton’s Batman because of her injury, she still took things too far by appearing on the talk show and making inappropriate jokes about Pfeiffer and Burton. She also appeared to be withholding important information by refusing to mention the audition on The Joan Rivers Show, which made Burton and Warner Bros. come across as unreasonable when that wasn’t the case. Young’s appearance on The Joan Rivers Show definitely impacted her career as an actor, and she never worked with Tim Burton again after her segment on the show aired.
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