We all know Jack Whitehall went to the same school as Rob and for years Rob has been used as fodder for his stand up shows. Jack talks to Jimmy Fallon about how he decided he was going to move past that and how karma came to bite him.

Holy …. Moly

From DCFandome

Updated 18 Oct: this great new interview has surfaced where Rob talks about preparing for Batman and how he prepared a 5 year plan as he wanted the role that hasn’t been created yet

Thanks Padma for heads up.

Rob’s intro

BTS

Panel

Thanks Cyn for BTS and panel vids

Rob quote from panel:

He doesn’t have as much control over his personality. The delineation between when he’s Batman and when he’s Bruce [Wayne] is not so clear. In other iterations, he really knows what he’s doing when he’s putting on the cowl – but I really liked this idea of [him being] a little bit out of control. He hasn’t completely defined what Batman is. He gets lost in it, whenever he’s putting it on every night. He’s not sleeping, and he’s becoming this odd creature.

Variety interviewed Rob today at the Premiere Party for the Academy Museum and this is what Rob had to say about what surprises were in store for Batman fans at DC Fandome:

“Me and Zoë [Kravitz] did some stuff. It’s a fun little thing,” Pattinson told Variety’s Angelique Jackson. “There are lots of little surprises for it.”

The actor also confirmed that he has watched some portions of his DC film during the interview.

“I’ve seen some of the movie now and it’s kind of really cool,” Pattinson said. “It’s really cool.”

This is what Rob had to say to Associated Press and whether it’s sunk it that he’s The Batman and what it’s like wearing the suit:

“I mean it’s a strange feeling. I had moments when I was shooting when you just catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflection and you’d be like ‘wait am I actually doing this, this is crazy’, but it’s been really fun and it’s really exciting so far.

It’s hard, I mean it’s a combination of the suit does a lot of the work for you but then when you need to do some work you really have to fight it. It’s a very special feeling to put it on though.”

When rumours first started circulating in February 2019 about Rob being in the running to portray Batman there were a lot of cynics (even in the fandom) who just didn’t or couldn’t believe Rob would leave his indie world behind to front the face of another franchise. Yet here we are in 2021 waiting patiently for the release of the first film. I thought I would do a roundup of Rob talking about why he pursued the role, what drew him to it and what he’s hoping to achieve. Here’s what Rob has had to say thus far:

VARIETY – 3 September 2019 (watch HERE at 2.51):

“What About ‘The Batman’ with Matt Reeves?”

“I really like Matt Reeves and his set up for it. I mean, it’s an interesting direction and it’s something from the comics which hasn’t been really explored yet. Yeah it’s kind of crazy shoes to fill. I mean it’s interesting what the different directions he can take with it and the kind of fit in a somewhat quite specific character – there’s actually quite a lot of leeway I mean when you look at all the different tones of all those movies and the TV shows. You can do quite a lot with it.

Yeah, Batman was really the only kind of superhero who I really had any kind of connection with when I was growing up and really from the Tim Burton ones I was just kind of obsessed when I was a kid. I don’t know it’s very very daunting. It’s weird I’m quite glad I’m doing Chris’s movie right now so I’ve got something else to be nervous about as I don’t have quite enough anxiety space in my head to really get too anxious about it yet. So I’m kind of quite happily just like figuring out how to do things without really thinking about the pressure yet.

Where were you when you learned you were going to be cast as the next Batman?

I think my first day with Chris Nolan which is pretty insane.

NYTIMES (Kyle Buchanan – 19 October 2019 (PRINT Here)

BBC ARABIC NEWS – 22 October 2019 (watch HERE)

Why have you shifted back to big budget films?

Batman was kind of a surprise to me. Now that I’m starting to get into it, I don’t want to approach it as if it’s that kind of a big studio thing … I want to approach it in exactly the same way, I want it to be frightening – something which you lose yourself in. I think it’s more difficult to do because it’s such a familiar character to lots of people but I think, if you can find a place to lose yourself in it then I think it’s really exciting.

INQUIRER (Ruben V Naples – 25 October 2019 (PRINT Here)

And for a part in which your face is basically covered, there is something quite simple about the character in lots of ways. But to see the scope of how many different people have interpreted it, it could be put into so many different genres—it can be played for laughs, for anything. I thought Christian’s idea was absolutely brilliant. I’ve got a little idea of it (his take of Batman), but we’ll see how it works.

VARIETY STUDIO ACTOR ON ACTOR WITH JENNIFER LOPEZ- 14 November 2019 (watch HERE at 24.46)

JLo: … Now you’re about to play Batman was it a choice to kind of move away from [large studio films] for awhile and why Batman were you ready to get back into that big thing again?

… Even my agents were like, I was very very focused on it I don’t know why I kind of just kept coming back into my head. It’s probably like 2 years ago, and even my agent was like really?

JL: You wanted to do Batman so you sought out the part – oh I didn’t know that?

Yeah. Well not sought it out directly but I was interested in it. … I knew they were doing another one and it just really appealed to me and there’s just something – there was definitely – I don’t know what is that happened inside me but I kind of want to do – it’s a different feeling when you know there’s an audience who has – there’s anticipation from an audience that’s already there and it’s a different kind of pressure. I like doing something which an audience doesn’t know that it wants and try to get it out to them. And that’s a whole different thing, but there’s a competitive side as well when you just know that everyone’s kind of going “oh yeah you wanna play Batman”. And it’s kind of fun. The challenge of it is kind of interesting. … Whenever I see the little action figure or something I still haven’t got my head around it yet. …

JLO: I think you’re going to be an awesome Batman, because he’s a dark character …

I have no interest whatsoever in playing someone who is heroic. The only time I want to play someone who an audience knows they’re supposed to like is when they really shouldn’t like them. … He’s a very very troubled person – there’s very few of sort of a character who is regarded by everyone as a heroic character, most of them know that they need to save the day, that they’re saving the world and they know they’re good, and I always found it interesting that Batman he’s always struggling a little bit especially in some iterations of the story and he doesn’t know if he’s that great or not and that’s kind of interesting. Walking the line all the time.

Comicbook.com interviewed Jeffrey Wright and snuck in a question about The Batman. Below is an excerpt of what Jeffrey said about Rob, but you should listen to the whole segment below

I’m really excited for people to see what [Rob] does with this. He creates 3 kinds of distinct people – there’s Rob, there’s Bruce Wayne and there’s The Batman…they’re each distinct – it’s really cool

Jeffrey also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter and this is what he had to say about The Batman as a whole:

Can you spare a few adjectives that describe the experience of playing that character in The Batman?

It was gothic. It was sleuthful if that’s a word. It was mysterious, and it was tricky. It was tricky because of the conditions that we were working in. It was isolating for those of us who were away from home, out of the country, over in London. I experienced more quarantines than I would wish on anyone, going back and forth over the last six months. So it was a pretty dogged one to try to pull off. We were working in the teeth of the outbreak, and we were trying to protect ourselves, one another and the production. So it took a lot. But what I will say about it too is that it was really gratifying because we all unified around that purpose of doing our jobs, making this film, protecting one another, and getting through it together. And we did. I think we made a brilliant movie, and we did it as a collective that came together as one. I wish we would do a bit more of that in this country right now to get through this thing. But at the very least, I know we did it on that film set, so I know it can be done if the will is there.

Remember you can check out all The Batman news on our dedicated film page

I love how much respect Rob earns from everyone he works with.

This interview with Daniel Arrias who is the stunt coordinator / trainer for The Batman happened in October 2020 and I’ve started the interview where they start talking The Batman (58.07). During this excerpt Daniel says “that’s who I was talking about before” and thanks to Monsieur_HJ she has extracted that excerpt.

“I’m working with a someone right now who is not an athlete, who is a great actor….”

Big thanks to Gavin who uncovered this!