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Robert Pattinson was asked to change “absolutely atrocious” Batman voice

“Everyone does this kind of gruff, gravelly thing, and I’m like, ‘I’m going to do the opposite'"

By Hollie Geraghty

Robert Pattinson as The Batman
'The Batman'. (Photo: Warner Bros.)

Robert Pattinson has revealed that he was asked to change his interpretation of the Batman voice, which he had intended to be “radically different” from the one previous actors have used.

The actor, who stars in Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’, told the story on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ yesterday (February 16).

“Everyone does this kind of gruff, gravelly thing, and I’m like, ‘I’m going to do the opposite, I’m gonna go really whispery,’” Pattinson said.

“And I tried to do it for the first two weeks, and it just looked absolutely atrocious, and they told me to stop doing it.”

The actor then agreed to speak in a low voice for the role, discovering that Christian Bale had also attempted something different with the voice of the Caped Crusader in ‘Batman Begins’.

“If you listen to the first ‘Batman Begins’ teaser trailer, you can hear the original voice,” Pattinson said. “I only found this out a couple of weeks ago.”

The actor also revealed that Reeves was partly inspired by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain for the character.

“One of the first things that Matt said to me, he’s like, ‘He’s sort of inspired by Kurt Cobain,’” Pattinson said. “I’m like, ‘Really? That’s kind of the opposite of what I imagined Bruce Wayne to be.’”

Earlier this month, the ‘Tenet’ actor revealed that his Batman is ‘sad’, and that Bruce Wayne is ‘a weirdo’. Speaking in an interview with GQ, he said: “It’s a sad movie. It’s kind of about [Wayne] trying to find some element of hope, in himself, and not just the city.

“Normally, Bruce never questions his own ability; he questions the city’s ability to change. But I mean, it’s kind of such an insane thing to do: ‘The only way I can live is to dress up as a bat.’

“[Batman is] kind of a weirdo as Bruce and a weirdo as Batman,” he continued. “In this, it’s sort of implied that he’s had a bit of a breakdown. But this thing he’s doing, it’s not even working. Like, it’s two years into it, and the crime has gotten worse since Bruce started being Batman. The people of Gotham think that he’s just another symptom of how shit everything is.”

The actor also described experiencing a “bit of a breakdown” after months of shooting at night, adding that he “felt very much alone”.

“I was really, really dead afterward. I looked at a photo of myself from April and I looked green,” he added.

‘The Batman’ is released in UK cinemas on March 4.