When it was announced that Robert Pattinson was chosen to play Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, in Matt Reeves’ upcoming superhero film, “The Batman,” most people were confused. People who only knew Pattinson from “Twilight” couldn’t imagine the sparkly vampire kid in the role. Folks who knew the actor’s indie work thought he was way too good to lower himself for the superhero genre. What people probably didn’t know at the time, and something that Pattinson is revealing now is that he’s always wanted to play Batman and thinks it’s the pinnacle of parts an actor can play.
Speaking to TotalFilm, Robert Pattinson talked about his desire to play Batman in the upcoming “The Batman.” The actor is well aware that he has a reputation for picking unique and strange roles over the course of his post-“Twilight” career. But even with that knowledge, he thinks “The Batman” is a film that fits right alongside his other more recent films.
“I was aiming for quite different stuff,” said Pattinson. “Obviously, [Batman is] basically the jewel in the crown, of the parts you can really get as an actor. But I’d never really thought I was anywhere close to doing it, and especially with the other parts I was attracted to at the time.”
He added, “I just kept obsessively checking up on it for the next year or so. Even my agents were like, ‘Oh, interesting. I thought you only wanted to play total freaks?’ And I was like, ‘He is a freak!'”
And Pattinson isn’t wrong. Sure, Batman is a superhero who wears a cape and punches bad guys in the face. But when you break down the psychology of Bruce Wayne and what makes him dress up as a bat and stalk the villains of Gotham City, there’s quite a bit to dig into. And this is something the actor was well aware of when he approached the role.
“He’s got this enormous trauma inside him, and he’s built this intricate, psychological mechanism to handle it,” explained Pattinson. “It’s like a really, really, really bad self-therapy, which has ended up with him being Batman at the end, as self-help [Laughs].”
While Pattinson has proven himself to be a great actor, it’s still unclear if he’s a good fit for the title role in “The Batman.” We’ll have to wait and see how it all works out when “The Batman” hits theaters on March 4.
