Thursday September 11, 2008

Philip Seymour Hoffman has blasted recent rumors he’s set to play The Penguin in the next Batman sequel — insisting he has never been asked.

Speculation Hoffman was set to star in Christopher Nolan’s third flick about the caped-crusader reached fever-pitch earlier this week when Michael Caine — who plays Alfred Pennyworth in 2008’s The Dark Knight — told reporters that Philip had been tapped for the Penguin role — and that Johnny Depp would be joining him as The Riddler.

“It’s Johnny Depp as The Riddler. And The Penguin is Philip Seymour Hoffman. I read it in the paper,” Caine declared. “I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath – Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘S–t, they’ve done it again!’”

But Hoffman insists Caine couldn’t be further from the truth.

He tells MTV, “No one has talked to me about it – never.

“It happened, like, five years ago, too. It’s a rumor back then and it’s still a rumor.

“I’m more a fan, so the interest of being in it isn’t that great.

“It’s more the interest in wanting to see the next one. It’s probably better that way … I don’t know if I’d make a good Penguin, to be quite honest.”