The Batman star Robert Pattison opens up about “deep fear of humiliation”

Whether winter, spring, summer or fall, everything is always coming up Batman. At the moment, there are multiple Batman films and TV shows in development, including James Gunn’s movie The Brave and the Bold, a sequel to 2019’s Joker, and The Batman 2, starred Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader.

Roles don’t come much bigger or higher profile than Batman, so whoever takes it needs to be inured to the potentially destructive effects of fame. After starring in four Twilight movies as sparkly vampire Edward Cullen, Pattinson knows what it’s like to be in the public eye, but he still sounds like he’s not entirely comfortable with it.

This is based on a conversation he had with actor Jordan Firstman in Interview Magazine. Firstman asked Pattinson if he had ever taken any roles he wasn’t into. “Not really,” Pattinson said. “I have a deep, deep fear of humiliation. And also, you sort of know it’s down to you. You can say it’s a shitty script or the director’s a dick or blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day, no one’s going to care about the reasons. You’re the one who everyone’s going to say is lame. And the vast majority of people will say you’re lame even when you tried your best.”

Pattinson also seems to have a borderline apocalyptic view of what it means to be an actor. “I’m constantly thinking that you’re just going to spend the vast majority of your life unemployed and desperate and kind of feeling like you’re a total failure,” he said. “I think that’s just what life is. [Laughs]”

Well, at least he laughed.

Barry Keoghan (the Joker) talks about auditioning to play the Riddler in The Batman

Speaking of The Batman, Pattinson starred along Barry Keoghan, who showed up very briefly as the Joker right at the end of the movie. As Keoghan told Esquire, he originally sent in an audition tape in the hopes of playing the Riddler, a role that eventually went to Paul Dano.

“I just made it up,” Keoghan said about his self-tape audition, where he exits an elevator in full Riddler costume and walks down a hallway. “I wanted to make it Kubrick-y: symmetrical, the X on the back, the square doorframe, everything square. I just wanted swag to come across. Swag and endearing. It was just me giving my idea. And then I’s like, ‘I’ma send this in!’”

Another tidbit to know and tell, per Variety: before Paul Dano got the role of the Riddler, he was going to be played by Jonah Hill. Now what would that movie look like?

Jake Gyllenhaal was considered for Batman, Leonardo DiCaprio for the Riddler in Dark Knight movies

Lastly in Batman news, producer David Goyer went on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to talk about working with director Christopher Nolan on the Dark Knight movies, which starred Christian Bale as Batman. Apparently, Goyer initially had another actor in mind.

“We would chat about all sorts of things,” Goyer recalled. “There were a number of people who had screen-tested, and I had advocated for [Jake] Gyllenhaal. I mean, Gyllenhaal is amazing, Christian Bale is amazing, so who knows what.”

Goyer thinks that there’s some audition footage of Gyllenhaal in a Batman costume out there somewhere. Twenty sheckels to whoever can track it down.

Another fun factoid from Goyer: after the success of Batman Begins in 2005, a Warner Bros. executive wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play The Riddler in the sequel, but that obviously didn’t happen. “That’s not the way we work,” Goyer said. “The films were made around themes, not villains.”

The Batman 2 is scheduled to come out in theaters on October 3, 2025. Robert Pattinson, Robert Pattinson’s fear of humiliation, and Barry Keoghan will presumably all be there. Hold the Gyllenhaal.

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