It’s astonishing to think that Warner Bros. wouldn’t make a costume for Pattinson, especially as they might want something unique from what had been seen in older movies. But, it seems, that every new Batman film uses the previous films as a template. Pattinson didn’t even have the part yet when he was taken into the above-mentioned wardrobe to try on some foam rubber costumes that still had the bodily secretions of previous Batman actors caked onto them. “Every single still has the actor’s kind of sweat inside,” he said. What does 28-year-old Val Kilmer funk smell like? Only Pattinson knows for sure. Pattinson and an elite cadre of costumers and archivists that have the keys to the “little cage somewhere in Warner Bros. costume department.” The actor said:
“There’s the same people in the costume department who worked on every single one of the Batman movies. So they don’t really care who the director is or anything. They’re like, ‘Do not mess these suits up.'”
Pattinson did not mess the suits up, although he admitted that, because of their age, some of them were rotting away nonetheless. Foam and latex rubber aren’t substances made to last long, and they eventually melt into a sticky goop after a few decades. Pattinson recalls trying on a Batman suit that definitely didn’t fit and likely would require repair just from being handled and tried on after so many years. He said:
“Either one didn’t really fit, and you’ve got like three costume workers trying to squeeze your legs into this 30-year-old foam costume which is just disintegrating as you’re getting into it.”
Pattinson joked that he needed to be “lubed up” in order to fit inside. One may make their own lascivious joke here.
