‘Batman & Robin’ Lead Sculpter Says Batsuit Nipples Were His Idea and “Informed by Roman Armor”

Batman & Robin‘s sculptor says he introduced the nipple to the batsuit in Joel Schumacher’s run of Batman movies but that the director pushed for their exaggeration.

In an interview with MEL Magazine, Jose Fernandez spoke about the controversial suit design element that has dominated discourse around the film since its 1997 release, taking credit for initially adding it to Val Kilmer’s suit for Batman Forever.

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“It wasn’t fetish to me, it was more informed by Roman armor — like Centurions,” he said. “And, in the comic books, the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them — it was all about anatomy, and I like to push anatomy.”

Fernandez went on to say that he didn’t “know exactly where my head was at back in the day” but that was how he remembered his approach and at the time, “had no idea there was going to end up being all this buzz about it.”

The sculpture also explained the evolution of the suits’ nipple design noting that for Kilmer’s suit, that part was subtle and “just a little blob of clay” before Schumacher, who “loved the nipples,” decided to showcase them more in Batman & Robin.

“Schumacher wanted them sharpened, like, with points. They were also circled, both outer and inner — it was all made into a feature of the batsuit,” Fernandez said. “I didn’t want to do it, but he’s the boss, so we sharpened them, circled them and it all became kind of ridiculous.”

While the suits for George Clooney’s Batman and Chris O’Donnell’s Robin suits both featured the design element, Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl suit notably did not. Fernandez said that conversation came up, but the team ultimately passed after seeing a version of it.

“They said, ‘If the guys have nipples, the girls should have nipples, too,'” he recalled. “After I sculpted it though, everybody realized, maybe not. It was a bit obscene, so we took the nipples off.”

Fernandez said when it came to the controversy, he “didn’t really care or think much about it” as it “got its own life” around the film, but that when it came to his own opinions on the finished movie, he didn’t feel it was a strong Batman entry.

“I don’t even know that I finished the film, to be honest. I was at the screening, but I was thinking to myself, ‘This is not good,'” he said. “To me, it was like a stage musical, but without the music, more than it was a Batman movie. The movie was just all over the map — it was silly and bombastic, and there are times where you got shots focused on just Batman’s ass. It was all a little much for me.”

A previous version of this story misidentified Jose Fernandez as a costume designer. He was the lead sculptor.

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