Robert Pattinson got so buff for ‘The Batman’ Eddie Redmayne didn’t recognize him

Remember when Robert Pattinson was first cast as Batman, and fans were up in arms? These days, in the wake of The Batman being a total success, the Tenet star has well and truly shut up the naysayers. Partly how he did this was to get in tip-top superhero shape for the role. In fact, it turns out that Pattinson physically transformed himself to such an extent that even one of his old buddies didn’t recognize him when they were training together at the gym.

The old buddy in question is fellow Brit Eddie Redmayne. While appearing on The Tonight Show to promote Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Redmayne told host Jimmy Fallon about the time he went to the gym at Warner Bros. and was blown away by another guy’s feats of strength. As Redmayne recalled:

“One day, I went to the gym, and I walked in, and there was this guy with, like, a high ponytail. Massive. Doing the most extraordinary stunts I’ve ever seen with his stunt director and…and it was that slightly embarrassing thing when you’re a skinny runt, and you go into a gym and there’s someone…and this is the same gym that, like, Jason Momoa goes to. You’re quite used to big guys.”

It took until the duo shared a few words for Redmayne to realize that the hulked-out hero he was gaping in awe at was actually his long-term friend, R-Patz.

“And I walk in and there’s this guy, and this guy goes, ‘hi,’ and i go, ‘hi,’ and then I just sort of sit there watching him do these incredible things while I, sort of, you know, weakly do a sit up in the corner,” Redmayne continued. “Anyway, after, like, forty minutes of doing this, I sort of go – not forty minutes, ten minutes – I go to sort of scuttle off, and as I’m going, this guy goes, ‘bye Eddie!’ And I look back and it was Rob! And he was so physically changed, and he had a man-bun.”

This story gets even better when you hear it told from Pattinson’s point of view. During The Batman press tour, the actor likewise spoke about working out in front of Redmayne — and admitted that he was deliberately showing off!

Note that Pattinson makes no mention of the man-bun he had at the time in his version, though.

We’ve previously heard about the close bond between Hollywood’s English actors before now. Andrew Garfield recently revealed that he, Pattinson, Redmayne, Charlie Cox, and Jamie Dornan were all part of the same friendship group when they first moved to Tinseltown in the late 2000s. Redmayne’s story just goes to show how much their careers — and body shapes — have changed since those good ol’ days.

While we wait to hear more about Robert Pattinson’s future as the Batman, catch Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, entering cinemas this weekend in the U.K. and on April 15 in the U.S.