The Batman is set to bring one of the darkest iterations of the classic villain the Riddler to life on screen, and star Paul Dano revealed that the quizzical villain has been giving him sleepless nights. Like other actors who have taken on evil villainous roles, the intensity of the character appears to have taken a toll on Dano, which can only lead to good things on screen, but for a while, it did mean the actor was unable to quite let go of the character after the cameras stopped rolling.

Dano recently spoke to IndieWire about his upcoming role in The Batman, detailing it as one of the most “real” and “terrifying” depictions of The Riddler ever put in a Batman movie. With the character having previously been seen as more of a comical character in his portrayals by Frank Gorshin in the 1960s series and Jim Carrey in 1995’s Batman Forever, Dano’s sadistic take on the character in The Batman is unlike anything seen before from the character, and even the slightly more unhinged and murderous version played by Cory Michael Smith in the TV series Gotham didn’t come close.

“There were some nights around that I probably didn’t sleep as well as I would’ve wanted to just because it was a little hard to come down from this character,” Dano said. “It takes a lot of energy to get there. And so you almost have to sustain it once you’re there because going up and down is kind of hard. What I felt was the opportunity that Matt [Reeves] was giving with a villain in this film was more real, potentially more terrifying.”

The Riddler Has Usually Been Portrayed as a Jokey Villain

Unlike the villains such as Joker and Bane, who have always been depicted as violent foes, the Riddler has never been given the chance to be a main villain in the Batman franchise until now. Always settling for second best, it seems even more appropriate that the character should come to the fore in a movie that boasts so many Batman foes. While there have been suggestions that this new take on the character is similar to the real-life Zodiac Killer, Dano made it clear that he had ideas on how to make the villain stand out for his own reason.

“I always felt instinctually that the Riddler is just so much more than that in terms of his intent and purpose, so I didn’t get too into the Zodiac Killer, frankly,” Dano said. “One thing Matt and I spoke about immediately was the two sides of trauma. Bruce Wayne, as a child, experiences this trauma and the Batman is born of that. Sometimes we can take our scars or whatever you want to call it, and that can be fuel for a fire that drives one towards greatness at times. There’s another side of that coin, where those traumas, scars, and pains drive you in another direction. And I thought that was really powerful in the script. I thought that the sense of good and evil was not as black and white as it often is in a superhero film. And I thought those gray areas were really exciting.”

Dano’s Riddler will finally get his time to shine when The Batman is released next week.