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Robert Pattinson Lied to Christopher Nolan About a 'Family Emergency' to Secretly Audition for Batman

David Livingston/Getty; Andreas Rentz/Getty

Robert Pattinson tried to hide his Batman audition from his Tenet director, Christopher Nolan.

In a new interview with The Irish Times, the 34-year-old actor revealed that he was auditioning for the superhero film at the same time he was filming the upcoming action-packed spy movie. However, producers for The Batman asked Pattinson to keep things on the down-low.

"It’s funny because Chris is so secretive about everything to do with his movies,” Pattinson said. “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."

However, Nolan — who also directed The Dark Knight trilogy — was quick to pick up on Pattinson's lie.

Warner Bros. Studios Robert Pattinson in the bat suit for The Batman

"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 audition, aren’t you?’” the actor added.

RELATED: Christopher Nolan's Tenet Delays Release Again, Pushes to August amid COVID-19 Spikes

It was recently revealed that Nolan, 49, and Pattinson's highly anticipated film, which also stars John David Washington, will not be released on Aug. 12. Tenet was originally intended to debut in theaters on July 17 but was later pushed back to July 31 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"Warner Bros. is committed to bringing Tenet to audiences in theaters, on the big screen, when exhibitors are ready and public health officials say it's time," a Warner Bros. spokesperson said in a statement obtained by Variety. "In this moment what we need to be is flexible, and we are not treating this as a traditional movie release."

"We are choosing to open the movie mid-week to allow audiences to discover the film in their own time, and we plan to play longer, over an extended play period far beyond the norm, to develop a very different yet successful release strategy," the statement read.

Warner Bros. Pictures John David Washington and Robert Pattinson in Tenet

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The film's plot remains tightly under wraps, but Pattinson teased the film in a recent interview for Entertainment Weekly saying, “It’s kind of a unicorn of a movie anyway, because it’s not based on an IP thing. But after all this, hopefully, it will be a ridiculously overwhelming experience.”

Nolan described Pattinson character, who's possibly named Neil, as a “slight rascally character who operates within what they refer to as this twilight world of operatives in different secret services.”

“We think he may be called Neil,” Nolan said. “You never really quite know what’s going on with these identities.”

RELATED: Robert Pattinson Says He 'Lost All Sense of Time' After The BatmanProduction Shut Down

Meanwhile, filming for The Batman was put on pause in March due to the ongoing pandemic. The latest iteration of the franchise also stars , Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Peter Sarsgaard and John Turturro.

The Matt Reeves-directed film was originally scheduled for release on June 25, 2021, but due to the coronavirus, it has been pushed back to October 1, 2021, according to The Hollywood Reporter.