Robert Pattinson Featured in May 2020 Issue of GQ Germany

Rob is featured in the May issue of GQ Germany. I’ve added the translation of the interview below using Google Translate – if anyone can do a better translation please let us know in the comments. I like that they think Rob can build the bridge re The Batman:

Since May of last year we know that Robert Pattinson is the new Bruce Wayne will appear in the cinema in “The Batman” (US release on June 25, 2021). The Hollywood’s next big name, which gives the main character of a comic book adaptation. No wonder, one would think, because today’s comic adaptation is what is in the 80s and 90s was the gangster epic – it makes big money.

Robert Downey Jr. played Iron Man for eleven years, Joaquin Phoenix is ​​the Joker – and Pattinson just now The Dark Knight. You could be him on the big payday and congratulate the clever career move. Only: It’s not that easy with the bat. Because many played them before, big names often, and some failed. For Michael Keaton was the role of a kind of career life insurance; George Clooney against it – unforgettable in “Batman & Robin” from 1997, unfortunately! – would probably pay back every penny of his fee to eliminate this embarrassment to accomplish. The crux is: Batman is not a superhero, but a human being. He cannot fly. Him playing is a leap into the unknown. The fan base is hardcore, and gapes between love and hate a black hole. The deep fall threatens. But Pattinson won’t fall. In the team with director Matt Reeves (“Planet of the Apes: Revolution”), he did Potential, the role and the whole franchise successful and appropriately modified into the new decade respectively.

Unlike his predecessors Christian Bale and Ben Affleck who played her roles as Batman in a big canon Blockbuster successes, Robert Pattinson retired after five “Twilight” films in 2012 more or less back to author and independent cinema. “I have so many terrible memories when I think of paparazzi think, ” he recently told UK GQ. So he willingly said goodbye to the big hustle and bustle and money and mostly made great films significantly with smaller budgets. For example, he gave in 2012 the ripper in Paris of the 1880s in “Bel Ami” and the unscrupulous super rich in David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis”. In 2015 he played Lawrence of Arabia in Werner Herzog’s “Queen of the Desert”, one three years later criminals in space in Claire Denis ’“ High Life ”. In 2017 Pattinson searched Manhattan for a hot dog in his short film “Fear & Shame” – good thing he’s a camera team from GQ. By the way, from July 16 Action thriller “Tenet” to be seen – by director Christopher Nolan, who already shared and was responsible for the “The Dark Knight” trilogy with Christian Bale. And that closes Circle for Pattinson.

If you look at the filmography of the 33-year-old Londoner, “The Batman” appears as the next logical step. Because in truth isn’t The Dark Knight a mixture of vampire, super rich rioters and stripped-down criminals? With a very moral compass and conscience, but still so American like a hot dog.

As early as 2017, when Matt Reeves had creative responsibility for “The Batman” by Ben Affleck (who originally was in personal union for screenplay, direction and main role), he spoke about the possibility of a “noir-driven detective version of Batman” in “An almost Hitchcockian sense”. So a Hitchcock Batman? Storytelling would come to the fore, it would be more character cinema than pure popcorn action. And Pattinson dominates character cinema and film noir, that has been known since Robert Eggers ’“ The Lighthouse ” from last year, it would have can also guess earlier.

He has been the face of Dior Homme since 2012 and as such again and again also acting active: in commercials, but above all in artistic short films with young French directors like Romain Gavras or Jonathan Alric (definitely google The Blaze!). The latter was also responsible for the 46-second spot in which the current men’s fragrance advertisement that appeared since the beginning of February “Dior Homme”. In it Pattinson is the lover, the partner, the protector and the exuberant. Leonard Cohen sings his hit “I’m your man” and you think: yes, that’s the perfect one.

To what extent Pattinson’s Batman is still traditional in drawing in male fans will be shown by next year’s theatrical release. But what is is clear, however, is that only muscles, distinctive chin and generic masculinity are in the future is no longer enough for a “man”, not even for “Batman”. It needs diversity of character are a required depth of profile, a mixture of storytelling and popcorn. And Robert Pattinson can build that bridge.