The Batman will ring in the 2022 blockbuster season in style next month. The hotly anticipated movie is the first solo Batman film in a decade, with Matt Reeves having cooked up a whole new Gotham City, fresh takes on the rogue’s gallery, and showcasing a brutal and tortured version of the Dark Knight.
But it turns out playing the Caped Crusader doesn’t necessarily turn you into the coolest person in the room. Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz have opened up on making the movie in an interview with EW, and their first screen test together sounds excruciatingly awkward.
Kravitz explained that her screen test was also her audition and that Matt Reeves wanted to see if she had chemistry with Pattinson:
“The chemistry read was really intense. Rob was wearing the Batsuit, and it was a proper camera test with the DP there and everything on a soundstage. It wasn’t just reading lines in a room. So it was intimidating, to say the least.”
The very first thing Reeves asked her to do was take off a motorcycle helmet. Pretty easy, right? Think again:
“That totally spun me into a little bit of anxiety. It’s wildly complicated to take off a helmet and look cool, not have it get stuck on your head, or your hair look funny. I was convinced that was going to be my downfall.”
Meanwhile, Pattinson was grappling with his own nerves:
“The first time I’d even said lines from the script was in Zoë’s screen test. They had this idea that they wanted me to be taller at the beginning, so I basically had high-heeled sneakers on, and I’m tottering around in this strange Batman outfit. The camera’s not even on me, it’s on the back of my head, and I’m literally having this major panic attack, just looking for emotional support from Zoë, who’s trying to get the part.”
Fortunately, the pair delivered the goods, with Reeves confirming that “everyone could see there was something really special between them.” We’ve seen hints of that in the trailers, with Kravitz’s Catwoman pulling Batman out of his depression and near-suicidal campaign against Gotham’s criminal underworld.
Reeves has teased that the pair’s love story is “absolutely central” to the movie, so I’m hopeful we’re going to see some fireworks in their relationship (possibly literally). Talk is already building of The Batman 2, which at this point stands a good chance of being a full team-up adventure between the Bat and the Cat.
We’ll find out more in just a few weeks, with The Batman hitting theaters on March 4.