Much like Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson has done a lot of growing up. At the end of the day, the tortured end of K-Stew and Sparkles was great for both of them separately. It felt like Rob spent a few years in the indie wilderness, doing weird little films which few people saw. But nowadays, Rob is 33 years old and our new sparkly Batman. And I’m fine with it! Rob covers the latest issue of Variety, which is sort of a preview for the Toronto International Film Festival. Rob will be at TIFF this year to promote The Lighthouse, his bizarro “two lighthouse keepers go crazy in a lighthouse” movie. He chatted with Variety about that movie, but mostly he talked about Batman. Some highlights:

How he chooses roles: “Big movies, generally the parts aren’t as interesting — at least the stuff that was coming my way. I guess there was some fear. I think I probably would have been a little bit nervous to have gone straight into it immediately afterwards,” he says about “Batman.”

On the mixed reaction to his Batman casting: “To be honest, it was less vitriolic than I was expecting. It’s much more fun when you’re an underdog. There’s no expectation of you.”

He prefers life on a movie set: “I think I’d come back and my house would have flown off. I would have absolutely nothing. I’m constantly living in terror.” Of what? He searches for an answer. “If you experience a loss of momentum, you don’t want that to happen again. And I really enjoy working. There’s no part of me that can go off and disappear.”

He loves movie people: “There’s something about people who work in the film industry — they very much wear their heart and dreams on their sleeve. There’s so much desire falling out of them. I think people in other jobs, their dreams aren’t valued as highly. Also, there’s nowhere to put them.” He says that if he’s in an Uber and a driver starts to pitch him a movie idea, he doesn’t shudder like other actors would. “I’m so, so into it. I don’t want to be in L.A. to talk about f—ing restaurant reservations. I want to be in L.A. because I love movies.”

How the movie industry has changed since Twilight: “It felt like the mid-budget movie completely disappeared, but then it kind of came back with Netflix and the streaming services,” he says, adding that he wishes Netflix offered a better way to navigate all its titles. “Hardly anyone sees independent movies at the cinema anyway. It would be amazing if people did.”

He’d been chasing Batman for a while: “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. He didn’t accept any prods. I kept asking to meet him.”

Trying on the Batsuit for the first time: “I put it on. I remember saying to Matt, ‘It does feel quite transformative!’ He was like, ‘I would hope it does! You’re literally in the Batsuit.’ 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.’”

After he said something mildly spoiler-y about DC Comics: “Oh s—. I definitely should not say that. I’m so used to pretty art-house movies, where you can watch the movie three times and still not know what it’s about.”

[From Variety]

In this piece – his first interview since being cast as Batman – he talks a lot about how he wanted the role and actively sought it and called Matt Reeves and tried to get a meeting or an audition. Which… is interesting, because I didn’t think Rob had it in him. He’s talked about approaching filmmakers before, for indie projects, but to do the approach and really campaign for a big superhero role? Rob is all grown up, bless his heart. Oh, and he also spilled some minor tea that at one point, he did a meeting at Marvel but nothing ever came of it. It’s clear that Batman has been on his mind for a while though.

Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Variety.