We’ve become accustomed to seeing a very specific type of Alfred Pennyworth on the big screen, one that Matt Reeves’ The Batman is looking to shake up dramatically.
Michael Gough, Michael Caine and Jeremy Irons all managed to put their own spins on the character, but each iteration was still cut from largely the same cloth. Bruce Wayne’s trusted and loyal butler, confidant and erstwhile father figure was there to dispel nuggets of wisdom, offer assistance when required and show plenty of concern for their charge’s nocturnal escapades.
The casting of Andy Serkis already indicated that we’d be seeing a completely fresh take on Alfred given the actor’s more rugged, rough-and-tumble persona compared to his more gentlemanly counterparts, with the actor and filmmaker teasing The Batman‘s dysfunctional dynamic in an interview with Empire.
“Bruce is on this nihilistic journey, and they’ve pulled apart … It’s got to the point where they almost no longer talk. If they bump into each other in the corridor, it’s a very icy and painful greeting. They almost live in separate worlds now.”
Robert Pattinson revealed that The Batman finds Alfred becoming increasingly convinced that Bruce has gone insane, and when you couple that with Serkis’ comments, we could be in for some real fireworks between the two.
We can probably guarantee that they’ll be brought closer together by whatever unfolds in the story, but we’ve never seen a Bruce/Alfred combination with any sort of distance between them, so it’s a fascinating dynamic to play with.