The Batman stars and director Matt Reeves take us inside this dark new chapter in the Caped Crusaders history.
Both actors were feeling the pressure that day.
“The chemistry read was really intense,” Kravitz, 33, tells EW.
Zoë Kravitz and Robert Pattinson.Gizelle Hernandez for EW
It wasn’t just reading lines in a room.
So it was intimidating, to say the least," she says.
The seemingly simple act of taking off a motorcycle helmet.
Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant Jim Gordon in ‘The Batman’.DC Comics/Warner Bros. Pictures
“That totally spun me into a little bit of anxiety,” she recalls.
I was convinced that was going to be my downfall."
Meanwhile, Pattinson was experiencing his own bout of anxiety, even though he was already cast.
But he had also yet to utter a word as his character.
Whatever Scarecrow-toxin-level fears were coursing through the stars' minds, they weren’t apparent to Reeves.
“Everyone could see there was something really special between them.”
For Reeves, it was all about questioning a specific aspect of the Batman myth.
“I felt that it was important to examine this idea of him being an emblem of vengeance.
Is that really the right approach to all of this?”
Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz in ‘The Batman’.DC Comics/Warner Bros. Pictures
His investigation takes him to the Iceberg Lounge (run byColin Farrell’s mob lieutenant Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a.
the Penguin), where Selina scrapes out a living as a waitress and occasional drug dealer.
“They’re both very surprised by feeling a connection with somebody because that’s quite rare for them.
It puts both of us out of our comfort zone.”
Selina comes along, and he’s like, ‘Well, you’re a thief.
It’s going up against his snap judgment."
Selina isn’t the only one who challenges Batman’s code.
This shakes him to the core.
The Batmankicks off the third Batman franchise of the 21st century.
Warner Bros. turned on the Batsignal to find a new helmer to shepherd the project and chose Reeves.
(Ridley Scott and Fede Alvarez were alsoreportedly on the studio’s shortlist.)
“[Warner Bros.] kept coming back.
I was almost getting annoyed.
“It was a totally valid take on the story,” he says.
That last part ended up being moot once Affleck dropped out of the movie altogether.
I thought it was totally serious”), Reeves threw himself into writing.
The actor was also impressed by how timely the story was.
“There’s an awareness of an instability within Gotham that I think is reflective of the times.
There’s an awareness of certain class tension and pervasive distrust in Gotham.
“Batman or Bruce is in almost every scene in the movie” similar to Jack Nicholson’s P.I.
J.J. Gittes inChinatown “which is not the usual way these movies are done.
It’s a very Hitchcockian kind of point of view where you are wedded to his experience.”
Pattinson’s name came up early on during the writing process.
But there was something about this particular superhero movie that didn’t deter him.
“The interesting thing about Bruce in this is that he hasn’t really got his playboy persona yet.
He’s a freak as Bruce and a freak as Batman,” he says.
“There’s a lot of madness in it.
Kravitz was one of several names casting director Cindy Tolan presented to Reeves for Selina Kyle.
“The characters are so mythic, and I wanted [them] to be very flesh and blood.
She really understood that,” says Reeves, recalling their first pre-screen test meeting.
“We had a connection right away.”
“We’re meeting her at a really pivotal moment in her life.
Hence, the inclusion of Selina and Farrell’s Penguin alongside mainstays like Lieutenant Gordon.
“The Riddler dubs himself the Riddlerinthis movie.
This character hasn’t existed in the world yet, but he’s presenting himself,” says Reeves.
They weren’t yet the iconic mythic versions of what they become.”
The silver lining to the darkness?
There will always be more stories to tell.
“What I really wanted this movie to do was create a Batverse,” says Reeves.
So, the story had to stand on its own.
Because the idea, of course, is that Gotham’s story never ends.”
Like everything else, production shut down in March 2020.
You’re just constantly in that world,” says Pattinson.
Kravitz was ready to say goodbye to Selina by the end, too.
“It was the solitude and the routine that was really hard,” she says.
It made it almost easier to connect to the characters and understand how high the stakes are."
It feels as though they were Batman and Selina yesterday, but also years ago.
“I saw a look in his eye that I hadn’t seen before.
Seeing something new and very vulnerable as well was really beautiful.”
The Bat and Cat to the end.
The Batmanopens in theaters March 4.
