Since his blockbuster beginnings, Robert Pattinson has largely carved out a career doing smaller, arthouse movies. They’re brilliant, dynamic, and always let him get a little weird—Pattinson’s specialty. But it’s been a lot of fun seeing the actor bring his artier sensibilities to a big budget film like The Batman. And his take on Bruce Wayne and his Caped Crusader alter ego is fantastic—and quintessentially Pattinson. There is clearly a direct through line between Twilight vamp Edward Cullen and Robert Pattinson’s Batman. It’s especially clear seeing Pattinson talk about the characters back to back in his character breakdown for GQ.
Obviously, Pattinson’s Batman is an incredibly emo dude. And rightfully so. But Robert Pattinson shared that way back when filming Twilight, there was some tension between him and the studio over their very different ideas of Edward Cullen’s mindset. For Pattinson, it was super emo. For the studio? Not so much.
In the video, he admits, “I was 21 and wanted to make it as arty as possible and so we had this strange tension where the studio was kind of a little bit scared to make things a little bit too emo and stuff, and I thought that was the only way to play it.”
As Robert Pattinson tells it, this difference of opinion nearly got him fired from his Twilight job. According to the actor, his agents visited him on set and essentially told him to lighten up from time to time–specifically on the day Edward takes Bella to meet his family. Now, was Pattinson actually this close to losing the gig? Who’s to say. However, one thing is for sure and it’s that Pattinson was definitely in the right here. Edward Cullen is an incredibly emo character. His whole deal is trying to stay away from Bella because he can’t get enough of her. Edward and Bella’s are the quintessential teen angst love story. But with vampires. They’re that quiet couple who makes out in the hallway between classes because they can’t stand the part of being separated for 50 minutes. (A full 50 mins of despair and longing.)
Plus, Pattinson’s convinced that if he chose a lighter path for Edward across the board he’d have looked “even more like a psychopath.” And I have to say, correct again! Naturally, this jump started his journey playing “total freaks,” which he considers Bruce Wayne to be.
“It’s really sad. Something I always thought about Batman is that it’s really sad. It’s a tragedy,” Pattinson says of immediately agreeing to take on the role. As such, his version of Bruce Wayne is someone who “instead of getting over his parents dying at the beginning and just becoming Batman and saving Gotham, now he really hasn’t gotten over them at all.”
It’s some incredible sadboi behavior. Frankly, it’s fitting for the cinematic broody vampire to grow up into a famously broody (vampire) bat. We love to see it. Emo RBatz forever!