Being cast as Batman isn’t the same as being cast as most other characters. There’s a never-ending legacy to it. A long and storied tradition. And that’s something the new Batman, Robert Pattinson, not only is aware of, but relishes. Speaking to Total Film Magazine about the March 4 release of The Batman, Pattinson admits to not only seeking out the role of the Caped Crusader, but feeling like he was meant to play it through years of fandom.
“Out of all the comic book characters and that kind of movie, I’ve seen every single one of the [Batman] movies in the cinema, which I can’t really say I’ve done for any other series,” Pattinson told the magazine. “I was always really looking forward to them coming out. There was the combination of just being so attracted to it, but also feeling like it’d had a lot of movies made about it, and none of them are bad movies. People kind of shit on some of them, but they’re not actually bad. They all kind of completely achieve what they set out to achieve, and they’re all really interesting, according to their time and place. I don’t know. I just had a weird instinct about it. But I’ve always loved the character.”
He’s always loved the character and, yes, the movies — even the not-so-great ones. Which sounds like the headline to this article could have been “New Batman Robert Pattinson May Love Bat-Nipples” but we spared you from that.
As a result of this connection he felt to the character, Pattinson said he was immediately intrigued when he, like the rest of us, heard that Matt Reeves was making a new version of the film. “I just kept obsessively checking up on it for the next year or so,” he said. “Even my agents were like, ‘Oh, interesting. I thought you only wanted to play total freaks?’ And I was like, ‘He is a freak!’”
“A freak?” Well, maybe, depending on how Pattinson crafts his performance. But you certainly can see how this character, built out of such trauma and pain, could be considered that — and why an actor like Pattinson, who tends to avoid the spotlight, would want to take a crack at it. He’s complex and also a part of pop culture history.
The Batman opens March 3.