Jeffrey Wright discusses forming a 'dynamic duo' with Robert Pattinson in The Batman

Matt Reeves' The Batman lived up to star Jeffrey Wright's expectations when he watched the complete movie for the first time.

"It's the movie we set out to make," Wright, who plays Lieutenant Jim Gordon in the franchise reboot, tells EW. "It's the movie Matt had written into the script, and it was really pretty special to see it realized on the screen. It's an intimate movie, and it has all of the kinetic energy and the adrenaline that you expect, but it's also very intimate and emotional. It's a little bit of a diversion away from some of the similar stuff from the genre that we've seen. I think it really pays deep respect to the comics, to DC particularly."

Moody and gritty, The Batman follows a younger version of the titular caped vigilante, played by Robert Pattinson, as he teams up with Wright's Gordon to find the Riddler (Paul Dano), a serial killer targeting Gotham's landed gentry. This cat-and-mouse chase sends Batman and Gordon down the proverbial rabbit hole and forces them to confront dark secrets in the corrupt city's past, which shakes both of them to the core.

Ahead of the movie's release in theaters, EW chats with Wright about Batman and Gordon's partnership, what makes The Batman timely, and more below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you come to join the film?

JEFFREY WRIGHT: The usual way. Matt reached out and asked if I'd like to have a meeting with him about his next movie, The Batman, and he asked if I would be interested in playing Gordon. And so we met, and he described his vision to me, and I think gave me the script after the meeting. We had a good talk, and I could feel his passion for the piece, and also I could hear how incredibly thoughtful he was about these stories. Then I went away and read the script, and I was in. The script, it read like a really great noir-ish crime story that also happened to be a Batman film. So, it was a real departure away from what we'd seen in the past, but at the same time, it was also a throwback to the origins of the comics, which is grounded in mystery and detective work and sleuthing and all of that. And I just thought it was super dope, as the old people say.

What attracted you to playing Gordon specifically?

Well, I liked that we were in year two of Batman's work. Because we're early in his journey, Gordon is still a lieutenant. He's still a cop with his feet on the ground, so it gave a lot of opportunity for the character to be engaged in the story, crime-fighting. So, the role is, in some ways, a bit more dynamic than maybe previous iterations that we've seen in film. So, that was exciting to me. And it was also just exciting to be a part of this larger vision that Matt had created, which I thought was super clever honoring of the franchise, but also really taking the pulse of the current landscape outside the theater and touching on issues and tensions and tones that I thought really brought the series into the moment and brought these characters into the current moment in a way that was fresh, exciting, and smart.

Which real-world themes did you think the movie was in conversation with?

There's an awareness of an instability within Gotham that I think is reflective of the times. There's an awareness of certain class tension and pervasive distrust in Gotham. In the way that Matt shaped the Riddler here, it speaks to a kind of present-day virality that we see used for communication of certain ideas and propaganda. There was just a really well-considered framework for the telling of this story that was, yes, fantastical in that it's Batman and it's set in this iconic, mythic, fantastical city, but at the same time, it's very much reflective, I think, even more so now than when we started filming it, of America. Gotham is a city, but Gotham, in some ways, is also America. I think that's really very powerful.

I feel like a lot of the marketing focuses on Batman and Catwoman's relationship, but I think Batman and Gordon's is almost as important, and you spent a lot of time with Rob in the suit. What was that like?

I only had one scene with Rob when he's not in the Batsuit, and he's in the Batsuit for the majority of the movie. But yeah, most of our interaction is through the cowl and the cape. And I guess in some ways, what it does is, Gordon and Batman are partnered in this attempt to unravel the mystery of the Riddler and other nefarious things that are happening in Gotham. But Gordon also, I think in some ways, and I felt this, becomes a window for the audience. Because he's the human form. Batman is this otherworldly, strange half-man, half-animal that we know as this iconic hero, but there's something in the character of Batman that's also impermeable. There's something that is extra human. So, Gordon becomes a touchstone for the audience in some ways that I think is interesting.

And in working with Rob, it was wonderful because whatever I was doing was influenced by what he was doing. And I think we made these characters together. The tone was set by the incredibly beautiful, intricate work of James Chinlund, who's the production designer, and the lighting of Greig Fraser, the newly Oscar-nominated Greig Fraser, just incredibly moody feel to these sets that informed everything that we did. And, of course, overseen by Matt Reeves and his vision. But we very much did this together. So, Gordon and Batman are a team, a dynamic duo in this thing, if you will. And so, yeah, whatever I was doing was playing off Rob, and likewise, he was playing off me, and we carried on down the road in separate cars, but together. He had the much badder car than I did. I had some old beat-up Ford Prowler or whatever, and he has that incredibly just totally off the wall, radically sick, Batmobile.

What was your memorable day on set?

I mean, the most memorable day was the first day of our primary filming. We did a couple of smaller shots, but the first day of actual filming was the scene in which the Batman and Gordon enter into that crime scene that's filled with all of these cops. So, just that scene, walking through the hall, through those cops, it was so memorable. Because one, "Okay, we're making a Batman movie." But it was [also] the introduction of these characters together to a world that had never seen them before. And it asks a lot of questions: Who is this guy in this strange suit? Why is he wearing this strange get-up? And why is Gordon with him? ​​It raises all of these questions for which sometimes the answers may be assumed in other versions. It was just a wonderful introduction for us as actors to the story, and I think also as characters.

In your opinion, why does Gordon trust Batman in this version?

The answer is I think that they trust one another because so much else around them is untrustworthy. And I think that Gordon realizes that Batman is effective and that he's also, Gordon, overwhelmed. That was the thing that kept returning to me in relation to the character, and what most informs Gordon's character is the state of being overwhelmed. And so there is some desperation, I think, in reaching out to the Batman, but he's surrounded by so much uncertainty that he takes that leap. And I think likewise for Batman, he's alone. He's isolated. He recognizes that he is so, and I think he too, as well, sees, as he says, in Gordon, someone who's trying to do the right things in the midst of all of the decay around them. And so there's a fragile, slowly earned trust at the beginning that they're stepping into gingerly. And so that's how we began. The answer to why they trust one another is because they can't trust anyone else.

The Batman opens in theaters March 4.

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• How Paul Dano and Matt Reeves crafted a 'more terrifying' Riddler in The Batman
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• The Batman stars Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz recall their sweaty first day on set