Robert Pattinson Talks About His Worst Day on Set of THE BATMAN

Robert Pattinson is a pretty serious actor. While he likes to poke fun at the roles he started out with, including Harry Potter and Twilight, he is known now for playing characters that are very different from the norm, misfits if you will, in dark and psychological stories. That’s what drew him to director Matt Reeves’ The Batman. This take on Bruce Wayne is maybe a little darker than the ones that have come before, and Pattinson was all in. But he did come across one obstacle in his portrayal that he didn’t anticipate - acting through a cape and cowl.

In a recent Q&A event attended by Screen Rant, Reeves and Pattinson discussed the challenges of lengthy monologues and acting beneath Batman’s cowl. The director jokingly called the idea to make emotions visible through the cowl “a terrible mistake” because they “had no idea how hard it was going to be.” At times, Reeves would ask Pattinson for more, not realizing the actor was on the verge of having “an embolism.” The pair spoke about a specific moment on set when Pattinson became frustrated with how theatrical he had to become to emote:

“One of the things I love to do when I'm working with actors is say, 'Well come take a look,'” said Reeves. “And [Rob would] be like, 'How can that not be enough? I'm overacting. It's ridiculous.' And I'd say, 'Come take a look, Rob.' He'd go, 'Oh, you can't see my eyes.'”

“That was maybe the worst day of the whole shoot, because I really, genuinely thought it was you that was wrong,” said Pattinson. “And then I was like, 'How can we be doing 40 takes?' And then you're like, 'Just come and look at it.' And I was looking at it and I go, 'Wow, I just look like — there's nothing.'”

Reeves also said, “thank God I had Rob to work with,” praising the actor’s ability to be technical and incredibly emotional in a way very few superheroes have in the past.

It’s a good thing that the actor was able to humble himself and see what his director was telling him about his performance, especially since reports say that he will spend more time in the Bat suit in the film than not. I’m sure it will make it all the better.

The Batman hits theaters on March 4, 2022. Do you have your tickets yet?