George Clooney Reflects on His Stint as Batman: 'I F––ed It Up So Bad'

getty images George Clooney in Batman & Robin

George Clooney is the first to admit he doesn't think he's superhero material.

Speaking during a Q&A session at New York City's DGA Theater following a screening of his upcoming movie The Tender Bar, Clooney looked back on his brief turn as Batman in 1997's Batman & Robin.

Answering a question about acting in blockbuster movies versus more character-driven flicks, Clooney joked: "I did one superhero movie and I f––ed it up so bad they won't let me near the set."

"I don't want to get into all the bat nipples," he added (Clooney told Howard Stern last year that he advised friend Ben Affleck, who first played Batman in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, not to "have nipples on the suit").

David M. Benett/Dave Benett/WireImage

RELATED: George Clooney Won't Show Batman & Robin to Amal: 'I Want My Wife to Have Some Respect for Me'

"My work, where my bread is buttered, is the kind of films that I grew up in the '60s and '70s, which is sort of the prime time for American filmmaking, which were all story-based," Clooney explained.

It's not the first time that Clooney has knocked his own performance in Batman & Robin.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Earlier this month, the Oscar winner said that he won't let his wife Amal Clooney or their kids, four-year-old twins Alexander and Ella, watch the movie. "There are certain films I just go, 'I want my wife to have some respect for me,' " he told Variety.

The Ocean's Eleven star added: "It's bad when your four-year-old kid goes, 'This sucks.' That could be painful."

RELATED: George Clooney Once Advised Ben Affleck Not to Play Batman: 'Don't Have Nipples on the Suit'

In 2019, Clooney told The Hollywood Reporter that the "failure" of Batman & Robin helped inform later decisions in his career.

"I wasn't good in it, it wasn't a good film," he said at the time, adding: "What I learned from that failure was that I had to relearn how I was working. Now, I wasn't just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself."

"So the next three films I did were Three Kings, Out of Sight and O Brother, Where Art Thou? That was a very specific choice for me to find better projects," he said.

The Tender Bar will be in theaters nationwide on Dec. 22 and on Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 7.