Robert Pattinson tried to lie about ‘Batman’ to Christopher Nolan

Filmmaker Christopher Nolan is famously a man of secrets, so much so that we’re less than three weeks away from his next film ‘Tenet’s’ release and we’re still unsure what the movie is about.

So when actor Robert Pattinson tried to pull one over him when he had to sneak away from the ‘Tenet’ shoot for a ‘Batman’ screen test, Nolan was having none of it.

“It’s funny because Chris is so secretive about everything to do with his movies,” said Pattinson in a recent interview with The Irish Times. “And then I had to be really secretive about Batman stuff. So I had to lie to Chris about having to go for a screen test — I said I had a family emergency. And as soon as I said ‘it’s a family emergency’ he said: ‘You’re doing the ‘Batman’ addition, aren’t you?’”

Pattinson also talked about how shooting for the sci-fi, spy film ‘Tenet’ opposite former football player John David Washington helped him get fit for his ‘Batman’ role.

“When I’m running on screen I’m generally paired with John David who is an ex-NFL player so it was the most unfair thing in the world,” Pattinson said. “The maximum workout I do most of the time is a casual stroll. John David can run all day long. It was good that I ended up being pretty fit. But definitely, at the beginning, there were days I just could not walk afterwards.”

Then came shooting the film’s harrowing car-chase sequences.

“There was a scene where we went about five miles of a freeway in Estonia with hundreds of cars,” Pattinson said. “So John David gets in the passenger seat and Chris is like just follow the camera car. Take it easy the first time. John David turns to me and said: ‘Are you like a really good driver or something. So I’m [expletive] myself as I’m whipping between cars at 80 miles an hour and Chris is behaving like this is completely normal.”

Production on ‘The Batman’ was halted in the UK in March due to the coronavirus, but is reportedly set to resume this September.

‘Tenet’, also starring Elizabeth Debecki, Dimple Kapadia, Himesh Patel, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh, is set to release in the UAE on August 27.