New Rob interview in the upcoming July/August issue of Film Comment.

Nicolas Rapold of Film Comment had an opportunity to chat with Rob during the Cannes Film Festival. An excerpt from the interview follows. You can read the full interview in the July/August issue.

What’s your favorite Claire Denis film?

I really love No Fear, No Die. I didn’t know who she was when I saw White Material, when I was shooting one of the Twilight movies. It was on this cable channel in Baton Rouge. I was transfixed.

Let’s talk about Good Time. Your character, Connie, is almost like an actor in his life, a shapeshifter. And he sizes everyone up.

He has an innate understanding of what people want. And he does sleight of hand—he’s very good at diverting [attention]. When we were first developing it, they really wanted to push in the direction of making him a sort of mystic. He doesn’t really realize what that is. He’s a loner, and the more you live in isolation, the more you develop a unique fantasy life in your head. I think he’s running stories rather than lies. When he talks to the cop in the hospital, I was imagining that it’s not lying. The immediacy was the really interesting part to me: he doesn’t have to think, it’s so instinctive.

When you work on a character, do you think about why he’s like that?

I like things where you don’t know, and it’s like jumping off a cliff to see what happens. There are also certain elements of the character that you, as a person, really object to. That means you know you’re in the right area, that there’s something good happening, and you’re really not in your comfort zone.

What did you find yourself objecting to?

The first scene we shot was when I break [my character’s brother] Nick out of his therapy session. We were in a hospital when we were shooting it, and there were a lot of mentally handicapped people around, and Josh was like, “Say, ‘This is what you think you are?’” And I was like, “I don’t want to say that! That’s fucking crazy to say that.” And it’s like, no, that’s a thing: he refuses to accept that there’s anything wrong with his brother, simply because he’s his brother. There’s definitely a narcissistic streak throughout, and I know that’s a typical thing among lifelong criminals as well. There were definitely a few other moments…

Source: @FilmComment

Robert Pattinson talks about wanting to bring the story of the Band to the screen

  

IO Donna (Italy) posted a new interview with Robert, although to me it seems like a cut and paste job from previous interviews and articles (although this could have been gleaned from round table interviews I believe were given in Cannes).  Even the last question, as much as I want to believe it, has been floating around since 2012.  I don’t want to get too excited – hopefully when he says he wants to bring to the screen he means he wants to play Richard Manuel – Robert playing a pianist is like a dream come true … yes?  Anyway – here it is thanks to Google translate – make of it what you want:

Robert Pattinson, “To turn good time I lived in a basement and ate canned tuna”

In the last film he plays a criminal who assaults the banks. To get well into the part you really are burrowing into a subscale in New York. He had already experienced it: at the time of “Twilight” had to barricade himself in the hotel to escape the fans unleashed…

My first encounter with Robert Pattinson dates back to the fall of 2008: the occasion offered him the first episode of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer’s saga became, shortly thereafter, a global phenomenon that transformed its three protagonists – Robert, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner – in the world’s most popular diva-teen.

The meeting with him was repeated at the exit of each new chapter : it was evident that for Pattinson, in his early twenties, the weight of fame and success proved unbearable. He lived holed up in a hotel or barricaded behind walls of bodyguards. Today recalls that experience as a descent into hell: he, who aspired to be a method actor (follower of the Stanislavski method acting) was instead became a matinee idol , pursued by millions of teenagers. An image that since then, methodically, is committed to unhinge. He left Los Angeles and returned to live in London. He declined to commercial film offers, turning instead choosing independent works and characters are light years away from the diaphanous hero of Twilight ..

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 Robert Pattinson Idol’s Eye May Still Happen

According to NOW Toronto, who recently spoke to Olivier Assayas:

In 2014, he was ready to shoot the Chicago-set 70s crime drama Idol’s Eye – starring another Twilight vet, Robert Pattinson – in Toronto when an American financier pulled out the day before production was to begin.

Given that experience, it’s no surprise he is sticking close to home for his next movie: it’s a French film “with lots of dialogue” starring Guillaume Canet and Juliette Binoche that shoots this fall, but afterwards he hopes to revive Idol’s Eye, with Sylvester Stallone and Rachel Weisz starring along with Pattinson.

…

A few years ago you were about to shoot the American-financed Idol’s Eye in Toronto, but the financing fell through. What’s the status of that film?

The situation on that film has been ongoing for a while. In a nutshell, it’s a screenplay I wrote based on true-crime stories set in Chicago in the late 70s. The film was financed and we were ready to shoot, but the day before shooting we lost our American financing. Which was, like, a nightmare. It never happens. You can lose your financing, but usually you lose it a month or two before shooting – not the day before.

At this point, we have solved the more complex issues so now it’s doable again, but it certainly won’t be my next film. And it’s not a done deal, but it has potential to happen.

Why did you want to shoot it in Toronto?

Sadly, it’s very basic. Chicago is much more expensive. Also, I’d already filmed in Toronto on Clean so I have friends and crew members. I’m familiar with the ambience in Toronto – it’s very much a movie town. We found all the locations we needed between Toronto and Hamilton that could look like late 70s Chicago.

The film will star Sylvester Stallone, as well as Robert Pattinson and Rachel Weisz. What do you like about Stallone?

I’m a huge fan – what can I say? I thought Rocky was pretty great, and so were the sequels. I like him as a director. I remember seeing Paradise Alley – his first film – in the late 70s, and he’s a very original individual in filmmaking. He has something that’s very powerful. For this movie we needed a very powerful figure to embody Tony Accardo, a famous Mafia boss. I thought Stallone was perfect. I really like the guy and enjoyed our meetings.

 

Robert Pattinson on the cover of Cahiers Du Cinema

Robert is on the cover of the June edition of Cahiers Du Cinema and the magazine will feature a new interview from Cannes by Cyril Béghin & Stéphane Delorme.  There is no digital version of this magazine and I believe it will be available on newsstands in France from Wednesday 14 June 2017, so we will add the interview as soon as we can [Updated: interview after the cut. Translation to follow].  In the meantime, you can enjoy the photo of Robert as Connie Nikas below.  Loving the hype surrounding GOOD TIME.

 

Magazine scan and new BTS after the cut

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Robert Pattinson Answers NYTimes Questions about Claire Denis, White Material, Isabelle Huppert

 

The New York Times has done a write up of the 25 Best Films of the 21st Century so far.  At No. 15 is Claire Denis’s “White Material”. Manohla Dargis asked Robert a few questions via email and this is his response:

How did you discover Claire Denis’s films?

Robert Pattinson:  I saw “White Material” about seven years ago and she became an immediate favorite.

What specifically draws you to her work?

Watching the performances in her movies, you can just feel the freedom she gives her actors. She creates an entire world for them to behave in. And I think having such wide parameters to capture things from means her movies can be built from an enormous amount of incremental details rather than a narrow narrative thrust. Her movies feel like waves building and breaking.

What does Isabelle Huppert bring to the character of Maria Vial?

She plays a character that seems to live steadfastly in her faith and imagination and yet still feels so human, accessible and raw.

Is Huppert our greatest living actress?

It’s difficult to think of someone who’s better.

To check out the other contenders in the NY Times list, click HERE

Thanks Posh.

 Robert Pattinson surprised he is considered a heart throb

  

Michele Manelis sat down with Robert in Cannes, you might remember the photo above we included in our social media post, and here’s what Robert had to say:

He eschewed the usual five star accommodation laid on for a celebrity of his calibre and chose to live in one of New York’s seediest neighbourhoods.

“I literally lived in the same basement apartment [as the character] in Harlem. I never opened my curtains, didn’t change the sheets the entire time I was there, for those two months, and I would just sleep in my clothes,” he tells news.com.au.

“There was this woman who lived upstairs and she kept trying to see what was going on because she thought I was such a weirdo. I kept really weird hours and I would run in and quickly close the curtains.” He laughs.

“I was like this freak living in the bottom of the basement.”

t’s impressive that he maintained this lifestyle — though it must have been difficult for those around him, not to mention, rather smelly? He laughs. “I was by myself the whole time.

“I only ate cans of tuna the whole time. I probably have mercury poisoning now because I ate it just out of the can. That’s all that was there: tuna, hot sauce, and Nespresso capsules.”

It seems his commitment paid off. At the Cannes Film Festival, where the audiences are tough at the best of times, Pattinson received a standing ovation when the end credits rolled. Quite a departure from his adored role in the Twilight franchise which made him an international celebrity but his acting skills were never taken seriously.

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