It got lost among all the talk about microwaves blowing up, but during an early pandemic interview with GQ, Robert Pattinson shared that he didn’t want his Batman to look like a CrossFit member. “I think if you’re working out all the time, you’re part of the problem. You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the ’70s. Even James Dean — he wasn’t exactly ripped,” he explained, adding, “Literally, I’m just barely doing anything.”
It was a very 2020 mood, but nearly two years later, Pattinson swears he was kidding. “That really came back to haunt me. I just always think it’s really embarrassing to talk about how you’re working out,” he told MovieMaker. “I think it’s like an English thing. Unless you are in the most unbelievable shape, where people are just genuinely curious, going, ‘How have you achieved, like, physical perfection?’ or whatever.”
He clarifies, “You’re playing Batman. You have to work out.” He laughs. “I think I was doing the interview when I was in lockdown, as well, in England… I was in a lower gear of working out.”
Michael Keaton once told a story about the time Jack Nicholson saw him exercising on the set of 1989’s Batman. “He looks at me and he goes, ‘What are you doing?’ So I said, ‘Working out.’ And he goes, ‘What for?’ And I stopped sweating and I went, ‘I don’t know.’ Then he just walked away, and I thought, ‘He’s right’ because I’ve got the suit and the suit makes me look good.” See, Robert Pattinson? The moral of the tale: you don’t have to work out to play Batman (Robert Pattinson) or watch Paddington 2 on the couch (me).
(Via MovieMaker)
