Two-Face Batman: Every Actor and Film

Two-Face is Harvey Dent, a Gotham district attorney who is badly scarred and turns into a criminal who lets a coin decide his victims. Across the Batman films the character is credited to three actors in four movies.

Billy Dee Williams is credited as Harvey Dent in Batman (1989), directed by Tim Burton. Tommy Lee Jones is credited as Harvey Two-Face / Harvey Dent in Batman Forever (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher. Aaron Eckhart is credited as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008), directed by Christopher Nolan. Williams then returns in The Lego Batman Movie (2017), directed by Chris McKay, where the credit reads Two-Face (voice).

So, if you are searching for the Two-Face Batman actor, the answer depends on the film. The credits use three names for the same man (Harvey Dent, Harvey Two-Face / Harvey Dent and Two-Face), which is worth keeping straight when you search a cast list. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) leans on his legend, because Gotham celebrates his memory and has nearly wiped out organized crime under a law named for him.

Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face through violence that scars him, and the two best-known versions on screen explain it in very different ways. In Batman Forever, Dent is already the criminal Two-Face when the film begins, having been scarred in an attack, and he wants Batman dead. Batman stops one of his hostage attacks early on. Two-Face then teams up with Edward Nygma, who becomes the Riddler after Bruce Wayne turns down his brain-wave device, and the pair steal money and information. Two-Face attacks a circus and kills the Grayson family, leaving young Dick Grayson orphaned, and Bruce takes the boy in. The villains later raid Wayne Manor, wreck the Batcave and kidnap Chase Meridian.

The Dark Knight gives the fuller answer to why Two-Face turned evil. Dent is the public hero of Gotham, working with Batman and Lieutenant Gordon to break the crime families, and Bruce hopes Dent can carry the city so that Batman can retire. Dent even claims to be Batman to draw out the Joker. In custody, the Joker tells Batman that Rachel Dawes and Dent are held in two separate buildings rigged to explode, but he has swapped the locations. Rachel dies and Dent is burned on one side of his face. The Joker then pushes the grieving Dent toward revenge, and Dent uses a coin toss to choose which of the people he blames will die.

The contrast is useful. Forever opens with the finished villain already in place, while Nolan's film shows the fall itself, from public hero to killer.

Two-Face's key relationships are with Rachel Dawes, Batman and the Joker, and in The Dark Knight each one shapes his fall. Rachel is dating Dent, and Bruce Wayne backs Dent in public partly because Dent's success could let him retire as Batman and be with her. So, to answer who Two-Face was in love with, it is Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal in that film. Alfred later burns a letter in which she said she had chosen Dent.

His bond with Batman is a partnership that curdles. Dent, Batman and Gordon work together to take down the mob, and later Dent holds Gordon's family hostage. The Joker is the catalyst, using Dent's grief to prove that even Gotham's best man can be corrupted. Compare that with Forever, where Two-Face is a willing partner of the Riddler, and the killing of the Grayson family leaves young Dick Grayson an orphan, the path that leads him to become Robin. For more on the others, see Bruce Wayne, the Joker and Commissioner Gordon, or browse every Batman villain.

Two-Face dies in Batman Forever and in The Dark Knight, and in both cases he falls. In Batman Forever he falls to his death after a coin trick backfires during the final fight on the Riddler's island hideout. In The Dark Knight he takes Gordon's family hostage and dies in a fall during the struggle, while Batman saves Gordon's son.

The Dark Knight then turns his death into a lie that shapes the next film. Batman takes the blame for Dent's crimes so that Gotham can keep believing in him, and Gordon goes along with it. The city mourns Dent as a hero, and the police launch a manhunt for Batman. By the time of The Dark Knight Rises, eight years later, Gotham has nearly wiped out organized crime under a law named for Dent, and Gordon privately carries the secret of what Dent did.

The other two films carry credits for the character only: Williams as Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and as Two-Face (voice) in The Lego Batman Movie.

In my opinion, the best Two-Face scene is Dent claiming to be Batman in The Dark Knight, because it shows exactly how far the hero side of Harvey is willing to go before the fall. It could be argued that this is what makes the later coin-toss killings land so hard, since we have already watched him offer himself up for the city.

Second, the coin itself. The Dark Knight uses the toss as a cold way to choose victims, while Batman Forever plays it more theatrically and then lets the same trick backfire in the final fight. I prefer Nolan's version, but Jones's version fits the loud, circus-bright world Schumacher built, and, in my view, the attack on the Grayson family is the one moment where that world turns genuinely dark.

Third, a small one: Williams voicing Two-Face in The Lego Batman Movie after being Harvey Dent in 1989 is a neat piece of casting continuity. If you are new to Two-Face, start with The Dark Knight, then watch Batman Forever to see how differently the same villain can be handled, and check the full Batman movies in order to see where each fits.