A reclusive billionaire dressing up as an armored flying mammal to pulverize criminals with his bare hands as his hometown’s resident vigilante is more than enough to ensure that Batman instills fear in his foes, but it’s not often that we get to see what the man under the cape and cowl is afraid of.
Bruce Wayne focuses so much energy on his double life that plenty of adaptations haven’t felt obliged to spend that much time exploring what makes him tick when he’s not prowling Gotham City at night. However, it sounds as though Robert Pattinson’s upcoming spin on the iconic favorite is set to dive deep into Bruce’s greatest fear.
In an interview with The River, the actor teased that his Caped Crusader’s most prominent worry is a relatively simple one; the underlying terror of Gotham finding out that its nocturnal protector is actually the city’s most famous wealthy orphan.
“Perhaps his greatest fear is the mask being stripped off of him, revealing the fact that Batman is Bruce Wayne. It’s almost like death to him. He fights that way as Batman.”
Almost every single Batman project to have ever existed features at least one other character figuring out that the Dark Knight and Bruce Wayne are one and the same, with Paul Dano’s Riddler continuing that theme in Matt Reeves’ reboot. Whether or not anybody else gets in on the secret remains up for debate, but Pattinson’s Bruce will have a hard enough time as it is trying to stop The Batman‘s main villain from revealing his secret identity to the world before the credits roll.
