After lurking in the shadows for a longer-than-expected period of time, The Batman is finally set to debut early next month with Robert Pattinson portraying the world’s foremost goofily dressed billionaire. (No, not that one.) And now that it’s almost time for us to witness his Kurt Cobain-inspired take on the character, Pattinson’s doing the talk show circuit telling tales about what it was like to prepare for such a famous role.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, Pattinson spoke about being fearful that he might end up in a bad Batman movie, how he ended up getting the part, refining the batvoice, and some of the preparation that goes into playing the character.
Pattinson says that his screen test required him to wear an existing Batman suit, which allowed him to “try on every single one.” As an almost palpable demonstration of movie magic’s enduring nature, Pattinson says each suit still has its actor’s sweat smell clinging to it, which presumably allows him to channel the past work of all earlier Batmen by absorbing their pheromones.
“I think the body fit more on Val Kilmer’s one and the head fit on Clooney’s one,” Pattinson remembers. And it wasn’t just Clooney’s Batman head that seemed to inform his version of the costume. Pattinson says “there [were] many, many nipples” on his version. “Very prominent. Pert.”
Sharing more on how legacy informs the costuming process, Pattinson also says he received some advice from Christian Bale on the importance of figuring out how to use the bathroom when dressed like Batman. One of the first orders of business when playing Batman, apparently, is figuring out how to do your business as Batman.
Anyway, this all sounds pretty involved and interesting but really nowhere near as cool as getting ready to play a comic book character by watching big cats fight each other a whole bunch. But, then again, Pattinson also tells Kimmel that he watched a video of a bat fighting a chicken by biting it on its anus while he was preparing, too, so we suppose even he got to see some exciting animal violence for research as well.
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