Senator to make "Dark Knight Rises" cameo

Patrick Leahy has made no secret of his love of Batman.

"He has no superpowers,” Leahy said, explaining why the Caped Crusader is his favorite superhero. “He had to use his own brains and his own knowledge. He could have had an entirely different life. As a billionaire, he could have done anything.”

Senator Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, gave that interview in 2008, around the release of "The Dark Knight," the middle film of Christopher Nolan's three-movie take on the Batman mythology. The senator had leveraged his famous fanaticism into a cameo role in a scene in the movie--he played a guest at Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) birthday party, grabbed by the chin and threatened with a knife by Heath Ledger's Joker (starting at 0:55):

But "Dark Knight" wasn't his first Batman cameo. He had a non-speaking appearance in the widely-panned 1997 "Batman and Robin" (starring George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger), and lent his voice to an episode of "Batman: The Animated Series," as a Utah governor.

Leahy will reportedly be able to add another movie to his resume, "The Dark Knight Rises," due out July 20. He said he learned recently that he'll appear in a scene with Christian Bale and Morgan Freeman, as Batman and Lucius Fox, respectively.

No word on what role Leahy will play in "Rises."

h/t