Robert Pattinson said his agent was shocked he wanted to play Batman: 'I thought you only wanted to play total freaks?'

• Robert Pattinson has said his agents were surprised he wanted to play a superhero role.
• Since "Twilight," Pattinson has mostly appeared in indie films, including "Good Time" and "The Lighthouse."

Robert Pattinson has revealed that his agents were shocked when he was cast as Batman after assuming the actor only wanted to play characters that were "total freaks."

The British actor will first appear as the Caped Crusader in Matt Reeves' upcoming film, "The Batman," and this will mark the first franchise role for Pattinson since "Twilight." Since the vampire saga ended in 2012, Pattinson pivoted to more off-beat indie roles, appearing in the Safdie Brothers' "Good Time" (2017) and Robert Eggers' "The Lighthouse" (2019).

"I was aiming for quite different stuff," Pattison said in a new interview with Total Film. "Obviously it's basically the jewel in the crown, of the parts you can really get as an actor. But I'd never really thought I was anywhere close to doing it, and especially with the other parts I was attracted to at the time."

He said he was desperate to win the role after auditioning: "I just kept obsessively checking up on it for the next year or so," he said. "Even my agents were like, 'Oh, interesting. I thought you only wanted to play total freaks?' And I was like, 'He is a freak!'"

Pattinson recently expressed regrets over viral comments he made in 2020 about not working out for "The Batman." "I think if you're working out all the time, you're part of the problem," he told GQ in May 2020.

In a 2022 interview with MovieMaker Pattinson said, "that really came back to haunt me. I just always think it's really embarrassing to talk about how you're working out.

"It's like an English thing. Unless you are in the most unbelievable shape, where people are just genuinely curious, going, 'How have you achieved, like, physical perfection?' or whatever."