Robert Pattinson talks to The Irish Times for Tenet promo

The promo for Tenet has started. The Irish Times published “All Eyes on Tenet the Spy Movie with Everything to Prove” which included interviews with Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and cast. This is what Rob had to say:

“There was a scene where we went about five miles of a freeway in Estonia with hundreds of cars,” recalls the English actor.

“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 s***ting myself as I’m whipping between cars at 80 miles an hour and Chris is behaving like this is completely normal.”

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Pattinson wasn’t any better at keeping secrets: “It’s funny because Chris is so secretive about everything to do with his movies,” says the actor, who was shooting Matt Reeves’ The Batman when that production was temporarily halted in February. “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?’”

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“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,” says Pattinson. “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.”

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Pattinson has definitely stated, in a Nolan approved soundbite, that Tenet is not a time-travelling film. Then again, by his own admission, he may not be the most reliable source. 

“When I first read it both Chris and Emma were saying: did you read this properly because everyone else took another two hours?” says Pattinson, blushing a little via Zoom. “And I said: Oh s**t. Right up until the last week of the shoot, I was talking to John David (Washington) and asking him some pretty fundamental questions about who my character was. And John David was like: ‘Wait, you don’t know this?’ But it’s complicated! You’re not just being fed the story.

“You’re trying to uncover the mystery at the same time as the characters in the movie are. A lot of the stuff in this movie is expositional world-building stuff and a dense story. And the script makes that accessible to a layman. And that’s really difficult to get that balance of making it sound like natural dialogue and trying to get across information that you probably need a PhD to understand properly. And then you have to put it in the mouth of someone like me, who can barely add.”