Christopher Nolan never has a casting in mind while working on a script

Among Christopher Nolan's films, his 2006 effort "The Prestige" is an underrated entry that is often overshadowed by the director's blockbuster efforts. Which is a shame because it's got all the non-linear storytelling and philosophical insight you'd expect from a Nolan movie before it starts leaning too heavily on that sort of thing. Adapted from Christopher Priest's novel of the same name, the film follows two rival magicians in the 19th century, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, and took Nolan and his brother Jonathan a full five years to write and direct. /p>

The casting of Bale and Jackman was truly excellent, with the former's more austere energy translating well into the thoughtful and more technically gifted illusionist Alfred Borden. Meanwhile, as Bale told Empire, Jackman's showman Robert "The Great Danton" Angier benefited from the actor's musical background. The casting was so good you get the feeling that Nolan and his brother always thought about actors, especially since the director had worked with Bale before "The Prestige" on "Batman Begins" in 2005.

But apparently that was not the case. Nolan confirmed that he's actually keen on not writing characters for specific actors, saying, "I don't think of actors when writing a script, I think of characters. I think that changes characters if you apply an actor's visualization to them. You're limiting what the character can do if you see them only one way."