Becoming Batman takes determination, a plan (hopefully), and money (definitely). Although, for THE BATMAN star Robert Pattinson, the hero of the new Batman movie perhaps didn't even require that much money, compared to screen versions of years past?

But what about becoming Batman if you're an actor hoping to be cast in the leading role in a massive superhero movie? In interviews over the past few years, Robert Pattinson has painted occasionally conflicting portraits of his own journey to becoming Batman. (Keep in mind that Pattinson loves to crack jokes during interviews, some of which are taken more seriously than he seems to intend.) Regardless, in order to transform into one of the most popular figures in pop culture, the actor relied on luck, determination, and his own special skills — just don't ask him about his first Batman voice.

Before we even get to Pattinson's own efforts, there's one big issue to consider, which is that not any actor can be Batman, especially now. It's not just a question of talent, but of what other roles an actor has played. Specifically, what roles has an actor played for Marvel Studios? With so many Marvel projects out there, Warner Bros. is said to have been keen to avoid anyone with Marvel on their resume.

Early in the casting process for THE BATMAN, Robert Pattinson was said to be a top choice thanks to his atypical choices of projects and the way he approached roles for them. Movies like GOOD TIME and HIGH LIFE helped tip Matt Reeves towards him. But at the same time, Nicolas Hoult was also in the running for the role. And while he had played Beast in some of the X-MEN movies, those had been` movies made by Fox rather than Marvel.

Perhaps another big factor in Pattinson's favor was the fact that his indie movie choices made him seem like an unlikely choice to wear the cape and cowl. There was every reason to assume that Pattinson wouldn't be interested in a role like Batman. Sure, he did a HARRY POTTER movie, but that was early in his career. And then there was the TWILIGHT series — but those were more like indies than blockbuster productions, and the overall experience seems to have left him cold.

But Pattinson had already signed to co-star in Christopher Nolan's TENET, which was the first indication that he wasn't totally averse to huge movies. And THE BATMAN writer/director Matt Reeves had made a name for himself as a director who could make tentpole movies with the sort of dark, unpredictable spirit that Pattinson seems to prize.

But the actor actually wanted to play Batman. He told Variety in 2019, "I’d had Batman in my mind for a while. It’s such an absurd thing to say. I sort of had an idea to do it, and I’d been prodding Matt [Reeves]. He didn’t accept any prods. I kept asking to meet him." Finally, when the script was finished, the director asked Pattinson to come in for a test, which happened to be just as his movie THE LIGHTHOUSE was debuting at Cannes. There was a lot of mutual interest, but even coming out of Cannes, where tuxedos are standard, the actor had to show how he could wear a suit.

A Batman screen test means that actors have to get into one of the costumes from earlier movies, to see how they look and move. That process alone, which requires a couple of costume assistants to help the actor into the suit, indicates that playing the role won't be like doing anything else. Indeed, Pattinson has said, "You do feel very powerful immediately. And it’s pretty astonishing, something that is incredibly difficult to get into, so the ritual of getting into it is pretty humiliating. You’ve got five people trying to shove you into something. Once you’ve got it on, it’s like, 'Yeah, I feel strong, I feel tough, even though I had to have someone squeezing my butt cheeks into the legs.'"

It's easy to joke about the Batsuit, but the truth is that moving in the heavy costume has always been an issue for actors, and the cowl makes displays of emotion particularly difficult. At least half of the face is covered, after all.

"The point was to make his emotions be visible through the cowl," Matt Reeves recently said, calling the process of acting through the costume a "huge challenge." But Pattinson persevered. "We had no idea how hard it was going to be. I mean, there were times when I would come to Rob and go, 'Okay, great. I just need to feel a little more.' He'd be like, 'More? What?' Yeah, he was about to burst a vein."

Every Batman actor has their own slightly different take on the hero's speaking voice, but in the end, there's a common quality to nearly all of them. Batman's voice — in live-action movies, at least — tends to be deep and harsh. It's a way to distinguish the character, and the man under the suit, from Bruce Wayne, and also to scare some of the weaker-willed goons Batman fights. So what about Pattinson's version?

"I wanted to do a radically different thing to all the other Batmen," he told Jimmy Kimmel. Instead of going for the "gruff, gravelly" approach that has worked for many actors, Pattinson thought "I'm going to do the opposite — I'm going to do it really whispery." And after a week or two he realized it was "absolutely atrocious." But then a crew member who worked on the Christopher Nolan movies let Pattinson know that Christian Bale had tried the same thing, and some of his attempt to do a quiet voice in BATMAN BEGINS actually showed up in the movie's first teaser trailer. We can't wait to hear the final version when the movie hits theatres.

THE BATMAN opens on March 4!

All images courtesy of Warner Bros.