The latest actor to don the the Caped Crusader suit is Robert Pattinson in The Batman directed by Matt Reeves.
Suiting up for the first time was a “powerful” and historic experience for the actor. In the darker and grittier version by director Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is an angrier, more emotional take on the iconic DC Comics character. His version of the Dark Knight is a do-it-yourself, grounded vigilante. He wears a more tactical-style suit reinforced with bulletproof armor to fight the worse criminals in Gotham.
In an interview with DC Comics, Robert Pattinson reveals his reaction to putting on a Bat suit for the first time and seeing himself as Batman:
“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,” Robert Pattinson said with a laugh. “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’ (laughs).”
“It’s incredibly powerful,” Pattinson added. “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.”
Before revealing the Batman suit that was custom-made for Robert Pattinson in The Batman, he screen tested in a costume that Val Kilmer wore in 1995’s Batman Forever. According to Entertainment Weekly, Reeves recalled his reaction to seeing his actor as Batman:
“Part of the tradition is that when you’re playing Batman at Warner Bros., you don’t just do an audition, you do a screen test and they need to see you in a Batsuit,” Reeves explained. “But they don’t make you a Batsuit because that’s a very involved process. So what you do is you put on an old Batsuit. You put on the one that fits you.”
“You could see Rob transforming immediately. The first thing that you do is you put it on and then he came out and looked at himself in the mirror, and he just turned to me and said, ‘It’s quite transformative.’ I said, ‘Sure is.’ That was an amazing experience,” said Reeves after seeing Robert Pattinson step out in the Batman suit.
“Part of the tradition is that when you’re playing Batman at Warner Bros., you don’t just do an audition, you do a screen test and they need to see you in a Batsuit,” Reeves explained. “But they don’t make you a Batsuit because that’s a very involved process. So what you do is you put on an old Batsuit. You put on the one that fits you.”
The Batman starring Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, John Turturro, and Andy Serkis is now playing in theaters.
