Antonio Campos on Robert Pattinson & Preston Teagardin in The Devil All the Time

UPDATED: 11 October 2020

14 August 2020

Vanity Fair spoke with Antonio Campos about The Devil All the Time and this is what he had to say about Rob:

Robert Pattinson as Preston Teagardin, a roving preacher who grifts his way across town in a powder blue suit, monologuing with a heavy Southern drawl about the various “deluuusions” that lead people toward sin. 

“It’s one of my favorite scenes in the film,” Campos told Vanity Fair of Pattinson’s “Delusions” speech, part of which can be heard in the trailer. “That whole speech is really inspired. There are certain performances where it almost feels like a possession, and I think this is one of those performances.”

For the director, working with Pattinson—an actor who’s been known to spin beautifully absurd yarns on the press circuit—was an “unpredictable” experience. “He likes to tease you,” Campos said with a laugh. “I had a sense of what he was doing and we had talked a lot about the character, but the Teagardin that came out when we started shooting—that was the first time I saw Teagardin.” 

“You have to trust the person’s going to do something good and be comfortable letting go of some of your control as a director,” Campos continued. “That’s very much how I approached Rob. There are takes that are absolutely insane and don’t make it into the movie. Rob would just go.”