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In 1989 Tim Burton’s Batman was a pop culture phenomenon. Michael Keaton suited up as the Dark Knight to defeat Jack Nicholson’s Joker. However, there was another villain waiting in the wings. The film also featured Billy Dee Williams as district attorney Harvey Dent…the politician who would one day become Two-Face.

Billy Dee Williams expected to return for the sequel for Harvey’s villainous transformation. However, Tim Burton didn’t include the character in the 1992 film Batman Returns. Keaton and Burton both left the franchise after that, with Joel Schumacher taking over as director, and Batman being recast as Val Kilmer for the 1995 film Batman Forever. The film featured Two-Face, but he was played by Tommy Lee Jones, not Billy Dee Williams.

(And no, despite the popular urban myth, Billy Dee Williams wasn’t paid for Batman Forever.)

Speaking to a crowd at Tampa Bay Comic Convention, Williams said he regretted missing out on the role.

“I had hoped to do Two-Face, but it didn’t work out. You win some, and you lose some,” Williams said. However, Williams has no issues with Tommy Lee Jones’s take on the character, reasoning that if there could be multiple Batman actors, there is no reason why there shouldn’t be for Harvey Dent.

“At that time, I think when I did it as Harvey Dent, I think they sold the rights to Sony, and so Sony decided to take it in a different direction, so I lost out on it. Big business,” Willaims said. Billy Dee is right about the bottom line, but some of the finer details are mixed up. While director Joel Schumacher and Warner Bros. Pictures did choose to take the Batman franchise in another direction, Sony was never involved.

Billy Dee’s appearance manager Derek Maki was quick to remind everyone that this wasn’t the end of Billy Dee’s relationship with Two-Face.

“He finally did get to play Two-Face in the Lego Batman Movie. And comic book fans, if you didn’t know this, there is a new version of Batman ’89 that tells the continuing story from 89 before the Penguin gets involved, and it shows Billy’s exact incarnation as Two-Face.”

While The Lego Batman Movie gave Billy Dee some closure, he still regrets missing his chance to play Harvey Dent in live-action. “All I had to do was talk. They did all of the artwork. It was fine. I thought it was a bit ironic, but it was fine. It would’ve been interesting if I had actually done it in the flesh.”

While it would’ve been cool to see Billy Dee’s version of Two-Face, it’s nice that The Lego Batman Movie and Batman ’89 have given us a chance to see what might have been.

He is vengeance, he is the night, he is... one of Popverse's favorite subjects. Learn how to do a Dark Knight movie marathon right with our Batman movie guide, and for the true World's Greatest Detectives out there, dive deep into the heart of Gotham City by getting to know Batman with Popverse.