Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz talk getting emotional in ‘The Batman’

“The Batman,” one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, is finally arriving on the big screen to treat fans of the franchise. The film was a huge undertaking for Robert Pattinson, who plays Batman, as well for director Matt Reeves, who had never made a superhero movie before.

The film follows Batman as he investigates the city’s hidden corruption alongside Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) when the Riddler (Paul Dano), a sadistic serial killer, begins murdering key political figures in Gotham and leaves puzzles for Batman’s eyes only. “The Batman” also stars Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Andy Serkis as Alfred and Colin Farrell as the Penguin.

This Batman is darker, grittier and different from all the previous iterations. In a video interview, Pattinson shared that this Caped Crusader is “fully realized as this messed up version of Batman and the story is him unpeeling the reasons why he is like this. I found it was really fun just to connect the past, which everyone knows, to this character, which has become the story and kind of re-evaluating how people deal with trauma.”

Pattinson impressively carries the emotional weight of the film, fleshing out a wounded character with gravitas as Bruce Wayne battles his inner trauma. “ After his parents die, he’s just out to sea and he has no idea really how to feel whole again, for many, many, many years.

“And because of his wealth, he’s allowed to kind of build up this intricate psychological makeup, which is actually kind of bizarre and then eventually manifests in creating Batman, and I spent a long time just trying to figure out how that would express itself (with) a lot of trial and error, and a lot of conversations with Matt Reeves.”

For Kravitz, it was really important to focus on Catwoman’s humanity as she made the role her own. Joining Pattinson in the video interview, she said: “I didn’t want to fetishize her. I didn’t want her to feel like a one-dimensional character. I wanted to allow her to be soft and also powerful, to be vulnerable, but also strong at the same time. I think it’s really important for women to have the flexibility to be seen for all of the different things that we are … feminine power and what that looks like.

“I was very, very lucky that a lot of that was on the page. Matt took a lot of time really trying to focus on understanding these characters from a very deep and emotional level. Also, allowing her to be angry. As a woman, oftentimes, it can make people very uncomfortable when we’re angry, so I really wanted to make sure that her rage was present.”

The heavyweight cast might surprise fans when the film opens in theatres on Friday. They humanize the man and woman behind the cape and catsuit. Their characters are compelling and if there was any doubt over Pattinson’s curious casting, the actor puts it to rest in his evolution as the tortured superhero.

Well beyond his “Twilight” days, the actor brings depth and dimension to Bruce Wayne, allowing fans to see the man beneath the mask. The actor admits he has high levels of anxiety, just like his character, and bringing to life a fan-favourite character was no easy feat for the 35-year-old. In fact, he had to approach acting differently since he’s sporting the Batman cape and cowl for several scenes.

“We’re doing long dialogue and emotional scenes behind the cowl and it completely changes what you think acting is in general,” the London-born actor said. “You’d think after doing it for 20 years, you kind of feel you have certain crutches you can rely on. This is so particular, but you think it’s your eyes that are telling a story, and then you take away your eyebrows and you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s actually my eyebrows.’ The only thing that’s telling a story is your eyebrows,” he laughed.

“The cowl has its own expressions and you have to learn. It’s like almost like doing Kabuki or something … kind of like Greek tragedy, they had to have a mask on. I hear people go to drama school, saying they’ve done mask work, and I never really understood what it meant and you have to learn really quickly.

“In the first month or so, I was doing scenes and you’re putting the amount of effort in that you would normally put and then Matt would just be like, ‘Yeah, I’m not getting anything from this,’” he continued. “And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? How is it not happening?’ Then you had to completely relearn, like, what angles, how to get your eyes to capture light in a different way.”

Kravitz did not have the same experience, but she sympathized with his plight. “I was much luckier than Rob in that department, in terms of watching them spend, like, three hours trying to light his eyes was crazy. I felt for him so much.

“I think for me, it was just a lot of the physical stuff,” the 33-year-old continued. “I remember I almost cried the first time. Rob and I were rehearsing a fight for a while; it’s the first thing that we did and then we did the first rehearsal in the suit, and I had gotten really good at this fight. I knew how to do it. I did it for like a month and then I did a rehearsal in the suit. I think I might have cried a little bit, because I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this was already so hard and now I have to almost start all over again.’”

The Los Angeles-born actress also did not anticipate several challenges of the filming, especially in a leather suit that Catwoman sports in the film. “Like Rob was saying earlier, and then you do that and then they add rain to something you can’t see and it’s so loud, and we can’t even hear each other. My suit’s leather, and I’m freezing cold and I’m slipping because the ground is wet. You have to throw everything away. You’re just like, ‘All right, let’s just hope I don’t fall on my face and hope that I can reach this thing without my suit splitting.’ I mean, it’s almost good in a way because you get out of your head a little bit because you stop thinking about the lines and the words and the emotions, and you’re just like, ‘Can I take a step or will my pants split?’ ”

Paul Dano on the Riddler

If Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is one side of the coin, the other side of trauma is strongly evident in Paul Dano’s deliciously unsettling iteration of the Riddler. In a video interview, the actor said: “Matt Reeves and I talked about the two sides of trauma and how Batman is born of trauma from his parents’ death and the Riddler is born of trauma as well.”

For Dano, who has always embellished his roles to a tee, it “was the challenge of going to a pretty dark place and letting it all hang out. In retrospect, the job was so much fun. It’s not necessarily always fun while you’re inhabiting that though.

“I loved the idea that you don’t have Batman without having Gotham and without having a villain. But I also loved the idea that you don’t have a villain without having Batman. I really liked the sense of morality that’s at stake here. It’s not as black and white maybe as most superhero films; there’s a lot of grey. I think Batman himself is challenged as to what image is he giving this city and to certain people in the city.”

Matt Reeves on his biggest challenge

The film is immersive and worthy of the big-screen experience. For Reeves, this was the hardest thing he’s ever done. He takes one of the most famous characters in cinematic history and, while respecting the source material, delivers a fresh story of his own. In a video interview, the director shared that “it’s taken five years of my life since I began it and it has also been incredibly gratifying and a real thrill.”

Reeves knew this film was going to have massive expectations, so he had to personally connect to the material and give the audience the most emotional Batman story. “The whole movie has challenged me in a way that I’ve never quite had and part of it is that people love Batman, right? The expectations are so high and I knew that I wasn’t going to agree to do a Batman film just to do a Batman film, because that’s suicide, right? It has to be something that you feel personally connects to you. You have to feel like you have something definitive to say. That was super challenging.”

“The Batman” is ambitious, gritty and a superhero spectacle that takes the film to new heights — and that was always the hope for Reeves.

“I’ve never made a superhero movie; it’s nothing that I’ve ever done before. So the idea of even just trying to find a way to do scenes with an actor who is basically masked for a large part of the movie and try to tell emotional moments through the story, because I wanted this to be the most emotional story that Batman had ever gone through. I wanted people to be affected by this experience. I want it to be thrilling. I want it to be scary, but I wanted people to be emotionally involved and doing that where most of Rob’s face is covered, that was super hard.”