‘It was very strange. I never auditioned’: Robert Pattinson literally manifested one of his darkest roles

At a point in their career, Hollywood veterans aren’t required to audition any longer. Robert Pattinson has now crossed that threshold. With many memorable roles under his belt, it’s no wonder he no longer auditions for every role he wants. But when you consider one of his most high-profile roles of all time, it’s a miracle that he was practically handed the role.

Some people claim to possess reality-bending powers, and Pattinson just might just be one of them. The Mickey 17 actor has a full plate in front of him. He’s slated to appear in a string of high-profile films: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love and Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama.  His secret to bagging such juicy roles? His imagination.

Pattinson’s superpower? Manifesting a superhero

Robert Pattinson has always implicated himself as a cinephile. But when Matt Reeves’ The Batman began production, the imaginary audition line must have been a mile long. Initially, Ben Affleck was in view to direct and star in the movie before it suddenly took a hard left. In 2019, it was rumored that Pattinson had auditioned for the role of Bruce Wayne during Tenet’s filming.

Fast forward to 2025, and Robert Pattinson himself would later disclose that he actually never auditioned for the role. During his press run for Mickey 17, he shared with Technikart that he pretty much manifested Bruce Wayne into his lap.

Listen, for The Batman, it was very strange. I never auditioned, and I had never played a superhero before. Two or three years before I got the part, I started thinking about it, when I really had no chance of playing Batman. And then, slowly, it was like an alignment of planets…

So what happened to the other actors who weren’t blessed with Pattinson’s immense powers of manifestation?

“Of course it's an emotional blow. It's also weird that this process has also somewhat become public. It's one thing to have your failures as one, it's another thing to have them publicly broadcasted to everyone.” — Nicholas Hoult on THE BATMAN auditions pic.twitter.com/sTHAcBAJvS

— best of nicholas hoult (@bestofhoult) November 7, 2024

British actor Nicholas Hoult admits to having a firsthand experience of what this was like. On an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he referred to losing out on the role as an “emotional blow.”

I remember a week before we did The Batman test, I was driving in my car and I had the radio on and they were talking on the radio about how Rob was going to be the new Batman. And I was like, ‘Well, It’s not confirmed yet, I’m auditioning next weekend’.

Hoult was later cast in James Gunn’s reboot of Superman as Lex Luthor, alongside David Corensweat’s Clark Kent. So it looks like it all panned out in the end. Although the two DC films exist in separate universes, there is at least some likelihood Hoult and Pattinson walk by each other on the way to work.

What to expect in The Batman Part II?

Matt Reeves loves to take his very sweet time with his projects. For some context, The Batman hit the big screen in 2022. However, news that Reeves had been hired for the job was already made known since 2017. As it stands right now, the only thing Reeves has promised DC fans is a darker, grittier Gotham in Oct. 2027. 

At the end of Reeves’ successful 2024 series The Penguin starring Colin Farrell, a character makes use of the words “No man’s land,” which has led many to believe this was an easter egg reference to the Batman comic arc of the same name.