The Batman Star Robert Pattinson Admits He's Not Working Out During Quarantine

Robert Pattinson, best known for his roles in Twilight and The Lighthouse, is not working out 'round the clock while living under a shelter-at-home order. Despite having been left with some minimal workout gear and instructions from a personal trainer, Pattinson told GQ that he can't seem to motivate himself to work out, suggesting that actors who work out constantly and create an otherworldly physique are "part of the problem" and set unreasonable expectations on themselves and other actors. While some find comments like these refreshing and humanizing, plenty of fans -- especially those who obsessively track the workout regimens of people like Ben Affleck and Kumail Nanjiani -- aren't having it.

According to a lengthy profile on Pattinson, which centers on how he is adjusting to social distancing, GQ reports that a Warner Bros. trainer left Pattinson with a Bosu ball, a single weight, and "a sincere plea to use both." Pattinson isn't feeling it, apparently.

"I think if you're working out all the time, you're part of the problem," Pattinson explained. "You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the '70s. Even James Dean — he wasn't exactly ripped."

The whole tone of the article is full of descriptions of Pattinson being inept with his broken technology and sighing heavily, so it's difficult to tell how much of his behavior -- or the story -- might be heightened for comedy. He did report that Zoe Kravitz, who stars in the film with him as Catwoman, is sticking to her workout routine, though, so if he's being serious, maybe fans will get a Bat/Cat fight scene where she has him winded in the first minute.

The version of Bruce Wayne that Pattinson will play in The Batman will be early in his career, so he was never going to be the jacked, stunt-performing version fans saw in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

The film will reportedly take place in the second year of Batman's career, and visual elements of the costume, sets, and other things that have been noticed by set spies line up with everything from the Court of Owls to The Zero Year to the old Adam West Batman series. The movie will also feature a large number of Batman's villains, although it seems that the most prominent ones in the main story are Carmine Falcone, Catwoman, and The Penguin.

The idea appears to be depicting a formative early story that takes Batman from being the kind of early, proto-version of himself that appears in things like Gotham and Batman: Year One, and elevates him to the superheroic ideal that we see in the comics and in films like Batman and Justice League.

Pattinson stars in The Batman, which will chronicle some of his earlier years as a vigilante fighting crime in Gotham City. The main cast also includes Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as District Attorney Gil Colson, and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth. Reeves is directing from a script he wrote with Mattson Tomlin.

The Batman arrives in theaters on June 25, 2021.