Cobra Kai’s Tanner Buchanan Wants To Play Bi Robin to The Batman’s Rob Pattinson
Share
Tanner Buchanan star of the Netflix hit Cobra Kai said he wants to play Robin opposite Rob Pattinson in any sequel to the upcoming The Batman.
“Ever since I found out Robert Pattinson was playing Batman, he’s one of my favorite actors, I was like I need to play his Robin,” Buchanan told Marc Malkin on his Just for Variety podcast. “That is my role. I need that one so badly.”
Buchanan, 22, said: “I’ve always been one of my favorites because I grew up watching and reading the Teen Titans, the cartoon and everything. Even when I was little I always wanted to be Robin. I wanted to be Robin. So hey, if Robert Pattinson needs a Robin, I’m going to fight for that one. I’m going to go for that one. That one’s going to be my role.”
Malkin brought up that some stories portray Robin as bisexual. Buchanan embraces that aspect of the character, too. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. Even when I did The Fosters and my character had a relationship with Jude. I did that when I was 14 or 15. I even played, it was an episode of Major Crimes where I was probably 13 and I was playing a kid that was a boy that wanted to transition and was currently transitioning into a girl. [It’s] representation. Why wouldn’t I?”
Robin came out as bisexual in a recent issue of the anthology series Batman: Urban Legends. In the comic, Tim Drake — the third character to take on the mantle of Robin — explored his close friendship with another male character named Bernard. Bernard is kidnapped by a villain, and Drake comes to his friend’s rescue. After the pair make it to safety, Bernard asks Tim out on a date, which the young hero eagerly accepts.
Comic writer Meghan Fitzmartin, who wrote the issue, told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Drake’s bisexuality felt like the “missing piece” of his narrative. She shared that the comic book’s creative team were thinking about the stories they wanted to tell since “it’s been a while since he’s had his own story”.
Art above by artofmischief (Twitter).
Fitzmartin explained: “I went back and I read a bunch of the comics that I grew up with and just really spent some time with that character to figure out what stories did I want to tell and there were these pieces that kept coming together that felt that they didn’t have context without this final piece of having him realize his own sexuality, that this is part of who he is as a person and as a character. She continued: “It felt like this was a missing piece in the understanding of this character, so it was sort of moving forward in that direction.”
RELATED: Robin Comes Out Bisexual in New ‘Batman’ Storyline From DC Comics
Buchanan told Malkin he accepts everybody else’s preferences, and wants to see them all represented on screen. Buchanan actually played LGBTQ characters prior to Cobra Kai. “I think people should live their life,” Buchanan said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. If that’s you, I want to accept you as you. That’s not represented very often. If I have the opportunity to represent something like that, that’s incredible. If they’re willing to write it then you know what? Of course I’m going to play it. Why not? For me, I think it should be represented. If people don’t want to play that role to be playing that role, that’s stupid in my opinion because I don’t think that’s right.”
View this post on Instagram
No word on actor whether Jay Lycurgo, who currently plays Tim Drake on season 3 of Titans and who’s slated to appear as a yet undisclosed character in The Batman will play Robin.
#Titans Season 3 Casts Jay Lycurgo as Tim Drake https://t.co/KNY2dlqkLa pic.twitter.com/NCTeakTIR8
— Variety (@Variety) January 28, 2021
RELATED: Jay Lycurgo Becomes the First Black Actor To Play Robin Joining ‘Titans’ As Tim Drake In Season 3 on HBO Max
Buchanan expressed excitement for his Cobra Kai co-star Xolo Maridueña who recently landed the role of Blue Beetle in a movie.
RELATED: ‘Cobra Kai’ Star Xolo Maridueña Will Portray ‘Blue Beetle’ for HBO Max
“I’m a big superhero guy, I’ve read comic books forever and superhero just movies, comics, anything,” Buchanan said. “TV shows, I’m just obsessed with. I could go on for hours. I called him right away, I was like, ‘Dude, congratulations’ because that’s huge. And specifically too, the Latinx community, there is no superhero movie with Latinx as the lead. And that’s gigantic. Like I said, it’s that just try to continuation of moving in the right direction. You’ve got to keep moving there. I was extremely happy for him. I can’t imagine how he’s feeling because when I heard it I still think about it and I’m like oh my God.”
Watch The Batman trailer below.
The Batman is set to open in theaters March 4, 2022.
