Robert Pattinson Explains Why He’s Playing Batman

Robert Pattinson will be the next actor to play Batman on film. He’ll debut in The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves. Talking to Jennifer Lopez in a Variety Actors on Actors interview, Pattinson discussed why he wanted to play DC’s Dark Knight. “With Batman, it’s a strange one with me,” he says. “I was very, very focused on it and I don’t know why. It just kind of kept coming back into my head. I knew they were doing another one. It just really appealed to me. I don’t know what it is which happened inside of me. It’s a different feeling where you want to do something where you know there’s an audience, there’s an anticipation from an audience that’s already there. I like doing something that is something an audience kind of doesn’t know that it wants and kind of try to get it out to them, and that’s a whole different thing. There’s a competitive side as well where you know everyone’s like, ‘Oh yeah? You want to play Batman?’ And it’s kind of fun. The challenge of it is kind of interesting.”

Pattinson went on to says that he’s not interested in playing a tradition superhero character. “I have no interest whatsoever in playing who’s heroic,” he says. “The only time I want to play someone an audience knows they’re supposed to like is when they really shouldn’t like them. That’s the only time. He’s a very, very, very troubled person. There’s very few of a character that’s regarded by everyone as a heroic character that they know that they need to save the day and they know they’re good. And I always find it interesting to know that Batman, he’s always struggling a little bit, in some iterations of the stories anyway. He doesn’t know if he’s that great or not. And that’s kind of interesting. Walking the line all the time.

In October, Pattinson was in the early stages of developing his version of Batman. He had already tried on his Batsuit. “It’s maybe the craziest thing I’ve ever done in terms of movie stuff,” Pattinson explained in an interview. “I put it on. I remember saying to Matt [Reeves], ‘It does feel quite transformative!’ He was like, ‘I would hope it does! You’re literally in the Batsuit.’

“And it’s pretty astonishing, something that is incredibly difficult to get into, so the ritual of getting into it is pretty humiliating. You’ve got five people trying to shove you into something. Once you’ve got it on, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I feel strong, I feel tough, even though I had to have someone squeezing my butt cheeks into the legs.’”

As for how he’s mentally preparing for the role, Pattinson said in another interview that “There’s a lot going on in here, lots of things going on in my head.”

Upcoming DC Films movies include Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7, 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5, 2020, The Batman on June 25, 2021, The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.