IT star Tim Curry reveals why he was DROPPED as Batman’s Joker for Star Wars’ Mark Hamill

The 71-year-old Brit may be famous for Pennywise, but he was set to star as another evil clown in Batman: The Animated Series and presumably films like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

While Curry was hired and had recorded material for the series back in the late 1990s, he was replaced by Hamill before it aired.

Now the IT star has spoken out as to why he was dropped, at Canada Fan Expo on a panel.

Speaking with ScreenGeek, he said: “I did play Joker for a while, but I had bronchitis and they fired me…and hired Mark Hamill. That’s life.”

The news that Curry was the Joker before Hamill was revealed back in July.

Animation veteran Bruce Timm revealed to Comic Book: ““He [Hamill] was so excited and full of enthusiasm for Batman. 

“He’s a huge comic book fan and he really wanted to play one of the big villains at that time and he specifically mentioned The Joker, and at that time we were using Tim Curry as the Joker.”

“He was really disappointed and he said, ‘well, if anybody else shows up like Hugo Strange or somebody, give me a call.’”

He added: “So many months later we made the difficult decision to replace Tim and we brought Mark in to audition for The Joker and he nailed it.”

Hamill has since become the iconic animated version of The Joker, most recently starring in an adaptation of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.