There’s a history of Batman actors being hired under much grumbling from fans only to win over a majority of the audience by their portrayals of the Caped Crusade (see Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, for starters). So while the recent casting of Twilight star Robert Pattinson as the next Batman rose countless fanboy eyebrows, the odds of him proving naysayers wrong are in his favor. In a profile in Variety, Pattinson speaks about why he is returning to high-profile, big-budget films and what it was like to put on the Batsuit for the first time.
For the past few years, Pattinson has been appearing in critically-acclaimed independent films. He says it has been a deliberate choice in order to find more interesting work. He explains, “Big movies, generally the parts aren’t as interesting — at least the stuff that was coming my way. I guess there was some fear.” In addition, it’s been seven years since the last Twilight movie, which gave Pattinson considerable time between franchise roles. He says, “I think I probably would have been a little bit nervous to have gone straight into [Batman] immediately afterwards.”
With that said, Pattinson is still in awe of his final audition to play Batman, which included trying on a batsuit in front of writer/director Matt Reeves. He remarks, “It’s maybe the craziest thing I’ve ever done in terms of movie stuff. I put it on. I remember saying to Matt, ‘It does feel quite transformative!’ He was like, ‘I would hope it does! You’re literally in the Batsuit. You do feel very powerful immediately. 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.’
