Mandy Patinkin, star of stage, screen, and all of our dreams, was cuddling with his wife Kathryn Grody on the couch when their son, Gideon, decided to pepper them with pop culture questions.
Naming five actors who’ve played Batman likely wouldn’t be tough for most people up on movie trivia, but everyone has their off days.
“This is horrible and it’s humiliating,” Grody said, turning her attention to her phone loaded with a language-learning app. “I’m gonna go learn Spanish because that’s supposed to be a good exercise for your brain.”
The five-minute video is a roller coaster of emotions, as Patinkin, the star of Homeland, The Princess Bride, and Yentl, and Grody, America’s newest social media sensation, struggle to list just one of the many fine thespians who have donned the cape and cowl as DC Comics’ Dark Knight Detective.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
First, there’s Patinkin shouting Adam Beach when he clearly means Adam West, who played the caped crusader in the campy 1966 television series and film. Beach, the Canadian actor of Anishinaabe heritage, was the lead in the 1994 film Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale, in which Patinkin co-starred.
Next, Grody does her best to recall Robert Downey Jr.’s name. “His father gave him fucking marijuana when he was a kid, he’s had a lot of issues!” she cries. Downey, of course, never took on the role of Batman, but he did play Iron Man, which is close.
The real fun comes when the pair tries to get Christian Bale. For some reason, Patinkin’s first point of reference for the respected star is a Civil War film. (We’ll later learn he means the Scott Cooper picture Hostiles.)
He also insists the person he’s thinking of is his age and was in a Boston movie. This might make you think he means Jack Nicholson, who was in The Departed, and, of course, once played The Joker. Patinkin is 68 and Nicholson is 84. Bale is only 47, so it’s hard to know what’s going on here. As far as Boston is concerned, Patinkin is maybe thinking of The Fighter, though he refers to it as something “about the politics.” He also refers to The Big Short as Spotlight.
Once his son gives a “sounds like” clue, Patinkin explodes with a message for poor Christian: “God forgive me for not remembering your name, but I remembered your soul.”
Grody offering up the name, “Benedict Cumberbunch,” as a substitute for Bale is surely better than answering any trivia question correctly. And as a true gift to movie buffs, “Lee J. Cobb’s daughter” somehow gets worked into all this.
When the video went viral, as it damn well should have, Patinkin followed up—“check out my Soundcloud”-style—with a push for people to call their representatives and support the For The People Act.
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