Robert Pattinson Talks Neil “Oh, I love this! I love living in a nightmare.” | #Tenet Press Junket

Jason Gorber from That Shelf sat in on the Tenet press junket and joined a conversation with Christopher Nolan and cast. This is what Rob had to say in relation to Neil:
Can you talk about the many layers of your character?
RP: There are so many layers that you make part of the character’s consciousness. He’s strangely aware of the layers of his own character, which is quite an unusual thing to play. But yeah, it’s fun. I remember trying to figure it out. [He’s] a very complex and difficult character within a very complex and intricate world. Once I realized that you can play Neil as someone who enjoys the chaotic situation he’s in, that seemed to be the touchstone for the rest. When you see the protagonist trying to deal with this new situation that’s incredibly difficult to deal with, it’s not pleasurable for any of the characters, once you find out the truth of the story, it’s not a great thing to find out. Neil is just one of these people who is like, “Oh, I love this! I love living in a nightmare.†[laughs]
The South China Morning Post featured these snippets from Rob about Tenet:
“Pretty much all the actors, outside the four of us, didn’t even see the full script,†says Robert Pattinson, when we speak over Zoom. The others in that privileged quartet? John David Washington, Kenneth Branagh, and Elizabeth Debicki.“People were coming in and shooting for months, and really having no idea what the story was,†adds Pattinson, “which I thought was pretty fascinating.â€
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Bond, Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt – all the famous movie spies you can name – have never faced anything quite like the time-bending threat that dominates Tenet. “People think it’s about time travel and it’s not,†says a grinning Pattinson, clearly enjoying the chance to tease.
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Still, as Pattinson muses, Tenet may never happen again – an original movie, not based on a known comic book or game, with sets as far as the eye could see. “It happens extremely rarely. And I don’t know how many times it’s ever going to happen again,†he says.
“The movie industry was sort of heading that way anyway. And now [after Covid], it might be pretty fundamentally different. Doing a huge, huge, huge, original movie, I think Chris [Nolan] may be the last guy who can do this.â€