Colin Farrell Recalls Dramatic First Time Seeing Robert Pattinson Suited Up as Batman

March 5, 2022, 10:59pm

“There it is,” said Colin Farrell when seeing co-star Robert Pattinson in costume for the first time on set of The Batman. An unrecognizable Farrell plays Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot, a.k.a. the Penguin, a Gotham gangster and criminal associate of mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). While answering fan questions for Twitter Movies, Farrell recalled seeing Pattinson suited up before filming the scene where Batman and Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) drop in on Penguin’s Drop drug deal outside a warehouse:

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“The first time I saw Rob in the Batsuit, it was the first time I saw the Batman. I pulled up to the set, we were doing the warehouse scene just before the car chase,” Farrell said of the Batmobile’s Penguin pursuit. “I got out of the car — in full costume, full makeup, ready to shoot — and I looked up on the roof. They were just finishing a shot up on the roof with Batman, and swear to God: he was looking down, the cape was blowing in the wind, he was backlit, I could see the cowl, the two ears sticking up. It was two o’clock in the morning, and I just thought, ‘Oh, my God, there it is.’ Not even ‘he,’ but ‘it.’”

Farrell continued, “The whole thing, the icon, that much history. You have a relationship, a lot of people have a relationship with this character, and it means a lot to a lot of people. Seeing it for the first time in the flesh was pretty cool.”

Pattinson similarly felt the impact of that history when seeing himself in the costume for the first time. (Pattinson first screen tested in the suit worn by Val Kilmer in 1995’s Batman Forever.) Recalling the costuming process in a recent interview with DC Comics, Pattinson said, “It’s incredibly powerful. You can really feel — there’s so much history that’s imbued in the suit and the iconography of it — and you can really feel it when you put it on.”

“From getting cast to putting it on the first time, there were probably ten months. So you’ve gone through the whole thing of fan reaction, then your own reaction, then the fan reaction, then trying to prepare for it and reading the most untold number of graphic novels,” he said. “When you finally get to put on the suit, it just suddenly, it makes it real. You suddenly think you can do something totally different with the character. It’s weird, you put it on the first time, and it’s so well designed, it fits so perfectly, you can move in it so well. You just look in the mirror, and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit.’”

ComicBook CRAM Presents The Batman:

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell, The Batman is now playing exclusively in movie theaters.