Ryan Potter wants to be the next Tim Drake - every Batman needs a Robin, right? Photos / DC, Getty Images
Ryan Potter wants to be the next Tim Drake - every Batman needs a Robin, right? Photos / DC, Getty Images
Ryan Potter just wanted to open a conversation about diversity in DC Comics' films, but ended up a fan favourite to play one of the franchise's most iconic characters.
The actor, best known for voicing Hiro in Disney's Big Hero 6, wants to play Batman's famous sidekick Robin. So hechoreographed and shot a 53-second long fight scene over three and a half hours, uploaded it to YouTube and went viral.
Apparently it was a kind of unofficial audition reel for Ben Affleck, who is set to both star in and direct a standalone new Batman film for Warner Bros.
But it wasn't just a chance to make it on to Batman's radar. The Japanese-American actor also hoped to open a conversation about diversity in Hollywood.
"This was really just to start that dialogue, and it's clearly done so," he told Heat Vision.
"In the [YouTube] comments, I see time and time again, 'I don't want to see an Asian Tim Drake [the third DC character to take up the mantle of Robin],' and other people go, 'Hey, he's also half-Caucasian.'
"On the other end of the spectrum, I see people say, 'Oh my God, he looks just like him. We need him as Tim Drake.' That's exactly what I wanted to happen."
After googling Tim Drake, Potter noticed he bears a resemblance to the character and "thought it would be absolutely amazing to see an Asian-American face in that cast".
"Marvel has done a really amazing job lately of adding a lot more diversity to their universe. One thing I noticed about the DC universe is it's very one-note at the moment in terms of age and diversity," Potter said.
Very little is known about Affleck's upcoming Batman film - other than that Joe Manganiello has been cast as Deathstroke - and Tim Drake may not even appear in the film.
But if he does, Ben Affleck's got a frontrunner to play him.
