Batman’s voice is almost as iconic as the Dark Knight himself – a gravelly growl that resonates throughout the Gotham underworld. So with that pressure how did Robert Pattinson’s find his take on The Batman's tones?
At a recent panel attended by IGN, the 35-year-old star of The Batman opened up about how he worked on his very own Bat-voice:
“I think the first two or three weeks we were doing a variety of different voices because there are only a couple lines in the first few scenes we shot,” he explained. “Me and Matt [Reeves, director] just sort of settled on something... it started to sit in a very particular place. It felt like a progression from other Bat-Voices, and started to feel somewhat comfortable to do as well."
According to Pattinson, there was a lot of trial and error in those early days. Being cast about seven or eight months before the film began shooting, he had plenty of time to experiment, and ultimately found a voice he was happy with.
“It's weird, it just suddenly starts to feel right,” he explained. “It seems that the more you embody the suit, the more you embody the character; it just started to come out quite organically. That's kind of what I was trying to do with the character; I was trying to think, he's not putting on a voice – he puts on the suit, and the voice just starts happening for him.”
As well as finding his voice, Pattinson explained how he found his own persona for Bruce Wayne, and more importantly, his reason for becoming The Batman.
"The suit, the Batmobile, all his tools – it’s just a guy obsessing in his basement, building," he said. "Even the grapple gun – it’s [Taxi Driver antihero] Travis Bickle. It’s a guy sitting there going, ‘My city is collapsing around me – I need to build these little tools’."
But director Matt Reeves explained that Pattinson’s versatility was key to finding the right voice.
“One of the many amazing things about [Robert Pattinson] is that he has such incredible technical control of himself... of his instrument,” he said. “He can do things with his voice... It was a crazy thing... I was saying, 'Oh, you can go lower?' I was like, 'That's amazing.'”
Previous Batmen have all found their own way into the voice. Although Ben Affleck’s Batman used the high-tech wizardry of a voice modulator to alter its pitch, it sounds as though this time around, it was all on Pattinson.
“He went through this process of searching where it felt like that voice should sit,” explained Reeves. “He has an incredible ear for mimicry and accents. There's no dialect coach; that's just who he is... The voice is one of the key ways into the character for you, right? You told me that if you played someone with exactly your accent, that your voice would probably not come out exactly in your voice... Would you say that is true? It seems to me that you have a very special process.”
But when it comes down to it, Pattinson was rather humble about his ability, saying it just came down to mouth shapes. “It seems obvious in retrospect, but you don't really realize... that the whole character, the whole performance of your voice is how many different shapes you can do with your mouth,” said Pattinson. “But yeah, you don't realize until you're doing it.”
Robert Pattinson stars as The Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, and Paul Dano as The Riddler.
The Batman is directed by Matt Reeves, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Peter Craig.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...
At a recent panel attended by IGN, the 35-year-old star of The Batman opened up about how he worked on his very own Bat-voice:
“I think the first two or three weeks we were doing a variety of different voices because there are only a couple lines in the first few scenes we shot,” he explained. “Me and Matt [Reeves, director] just sort of settled on something... it started to sit in a very particular place. It felt like a progression from other Bat-Voices, and started to feel somewhat comfortable to do as well."
According to Pattinson, there was a lot of trial and error in those early days. Being cast about seven or eight months before the film began shooting, he had plenty of time to experiment, and ultimately found a voice he was happy with.
“It's weird, it just suddenly starts to feel right,” he explained. “It seems that the more you embody the suit, the more you embody the character; it just started to come out quite organically. That's kind of what I was trying to do with the character; I was trying to think, he's not putting on a voice – he puts on the suit, and the voice just starts happening for him.”
As well as finding his voice, Pattinson explained how he found his own persona for Bruce Wayne, and more importantly, his reason for becoming The Batman.
"The suit, the Batmobile, all his tools – it’s just a guy obsessing in his basement, building," he said. "Even the grapple gun – it’s [Taxi Driver antihero] Travis Bickle. It’s a guy sitting there going, ‘My city is collapsing around me – I need to build these little tools’."
But director Matt Reeves explained that Pattinson’s versatility was key to finding the right voice.
“One of the many amazing things about [Robert Pattinson] is that he has such incredible technical control of himself... of his instrument,” he said. “He can do things with his voice... It was a crazy thing... I was saying, 'Oh, you can go lower?' I was like, 'That's amazing.'”
Previous Batmen have all found their own way into the voice. Although Ben Affleck’s Batman used the high-tech wizardry of a voice modulator to alter its pitch, it sounds as though this time around, it was all on Pattinson.
“He went through this process of searching where it felt like that voice should sit,” explained Reeves. “He has an incredible ear for mimicry and accents. There's no dialect coach; that's just who he is... The voice is one of the key ways into the character for you, right? You told me that if you played someone with exactly your accent, that your voice would probably not come out exactly in your voice... Would you say that is true? It seems to me that you have a very special process.”
But when it comes down to it, Pattinson was rather humble about his ability, saying it just came down to mouth shapes. “It seems obvious in retrospect, but you don't really realize... that the whole character, the whole performance of your voice is how many different shapes you can do with your mouth,” said Pattinson. “But yeah, you don't realize until you're doing it.”
Robert Pattinson stars as The Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, and Paul Dano as The Riddler.
The Batman is directed by Matt Reeves, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Peter Craig.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...