Anne Thompson: Why did you cast "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson as your ice-cold 28-year-old Master of the Universe?
David Cronenberg: Of course you begin with the basics. Is he the right age for the character? Does he feel convincing as a screen presence? Obviously you need someone with charisma to hold the audience for the entire movie. He's in every scene without exception, that's unusual. You want someone proven, who people want to watch, who will never be boring. I knew I would be crawling all over his face for the entire movie, so I wanted someone whose face is constantly changing, through all the angles. And he had to have chops for tricky dialogue. The art of casting is to intuit, to see from what he's done before that he could do this.
Was there a particular performance that gave you confidence?
I saw him in "Little Ashes" as the young Salvador Dali. He does a Spanish accent, he was not afraid to play a character of ambiguous sexuality and eccentricity. That probably of all the things I saw made me think he was the right guy.
Did you cast Pattinson with a certain likeability factor in mind, so that audiences would like him in spite of the character he is playing? Feel some vulnerablity?
I really don't care. I want the lead character in a movie to be interesting, fascinating and complex, but to be likeable to me is way down the list. It's not on the list, because it is a simplistic thing for the lead character to must be likable. He has to be watchable, that's the key, and fascinating, and likeable if it works for the project, fine, let him be likeable. If not I don't worry about it.
There are actors who do not want to play unlikeable characters, afraid it will damage their credibility as stars or effect them personally. Actors who are more interested in being actors than stars, like Viggo Mortensen, don't worry about being likeable or not on screen.
How did Pattinson surprise you?
He literally surprised me every day, as he read dialogue and interacted with the other actors. We were throwing different factors at him almost very day because of the stucture of the screenplay. He really has extended scenes. With one actor at the end, Paul Giamatti, he really let it fly, in that he didn't cling to a preconceived idea of what he should be doing. He reacted spontaneously to other actors as they surprised him and he surprised them. He was terrific and not predictable and dead-on accurate.
How many takes do you do?
One or two. The whole last shot was a long take with Giamatti, three minutes in that last 22-minute scene.
Read the full interview at Indiewire
Robert Pattinson. There were plenty of people who were a little surprised when you picked him for the role, but I have to say he gives a really sublime performance. You knew what you were doing, clearly -- so what was it that drew you to Robert?
Cronenberg: Well, casting always starts in a very pragmatic way. It's, "Is this guy the right age for the character?" "Does he have the right sort of physique, the right screen presence?" "Is he available, and if so, can you afford him? Does he want to do it?" You know, all of those things. But then you do your homework as a director, more specifically, and you watch stuff. I watched Little Ashes, in which Rob plays a young Salvador Dali; I watched Remember Me; I watched the first Twilight movie. And I watched -- interestingly enough, I suppose, because people wouldn't expect it -- but you watch interviews with the guy on YouTube, you know. I want to get an idea of his sense of humor, his sense of himself, the way he handles himself, his intelligence -- all of those things you can't really tell from watching an actor play a role in a movie. I suppose in the old days you meet the guy and hang out, and go to a bar or whatever -- [laughs] -- but these days nobody has time for that, or the money, and so you do it some other way. And once I'd done all that stuff, I thought, This is the guy I want. I thought, He'd be terrific and I actually think he's a very underrated actor -- and it would be my pleasure to prove that by casting him.
I think a lot of people will share that opinion after seeing the film. Was he difficult to get? I mean, he's clearly up for it, based on his performance, but how do you go about getting Robert Pattinson?Cronenberg: Basically, I wrote the script before I went into production on A Dangerous Method, so Rob got the script about a year before we were really shooting. He's a very down to earth guy, and he was surprised that anybody would want him. [Laughs] It sounds odd, I know. Of course, he knows that his name adds value because of his star power, but he knew my movies, and he knew I was a serious director, and I think he was nervous, you know -- I think he was afraid, because he knew it was good. He immediately loved the script, especially because he thought it was very funny -- and the movie is funny; a lot of people maybe don't see that the first time around -- and the script was funny as well. But also he had seen enough of the now conventional stuff that he gets offered to see how different this was, and how it stood out -- and the quality of Don's writing, because the dialogue is really 100 per cent from the novel.
So I really had to convince him that I knew he was the right guy and that he could do it. And you'd be very surprised that a lot of actors, and very experienced ones, too -- not just young ones -- they worry that they don't want to wreck your movie. They don't want to be the bad thing in your movie that brings it down. They need to be convinced that they're good enough, especially if they know it's good. He said -- and I know this 'cause of interviews that we've done together, and I hear him saying these things -- that usually the dialogue is so bad that you, the actor, figure that you are responsible for trying to make it interesting, just by the way you spin it. But in this case the dialogue was great, and it's a completely reversed worry: "Am I good enough to get the best out of this?" So it took me about 10 days, and Rob said he was afraid to call me back because he's used to bullshitting directors, like all actors do -- but because I'd written the script he couldn't do that with me. [Laughs] You know, actors can really tie themselves in knots, when really he just should've said, "Yes, I'll do it."
NEW YORK - Robert Pattinson was nearing the end of shooting the last “Twilight” film, concluding a chapter of his life that had picked him out of near obscurity and was preparing to spit him out … where exactly? “Twilight” had made him extravagantly famous, but his next steps were entirely uncertain.
“Out of the blue,” he says, came the script for “Cosmopolis” from David Cronenberg, the revered Canadian director of psychological thrillers (“Videodrome,” “Eastern Promises”) that often pursue the spirit through the body. Pattinson, having never met or spoken to Cronenberg, did a little research: He looked him up on Rotten Tomatoes “and it was like 98 percent approval,” he says.
“It was like: OK, that’s my next job,” says Pattinson.
Pattinson now has the unenviable task of releasing his most ambitious movie, his most adult role, into a media storm that instinct would suggest should be run from like a pack of werewolves. Promoting “Cosmopolis” puts Pattinson in front of cameras and microphones for the first time since his “Twilight” co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart last month publicly apologized for having a tryst with director Rupert Sanders.
The awkward circumstance, he says, is “dissociated” from the film, and he’s thus far declined to use the attention to make any kind of public response to the scandal. Rather, he’s sought to deflect it to “Cosmopolis,” a film that, in an earlier interview before it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, he said “changed the way I see myself.”
If Pattinson is understandably guarded about his private life, he’s refreshingly openhearted and humble about his anxieties as a young actor. At 26, Pattinson may be one of the most famous faces on the planet, but he’s still getting his bearings as an actor _ a profession, he says, he never pined for, fell into by chance and has always found uncomfortable. His unlikely trajectory began with “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Little Ashes,” in which he played Salvador Dali.
“Then I got `Twilight’ and it suddenly became a massively different world to navigate,” Pattinson said in a recent interview in New York. “Most people who get their big hit have figured out what their skills are, and I hadn’t, really.”
Great interview. They talk about Cosmopolis, working with each other, David talks about the first time he met Rob, Rob's preparation for the role and more
Youtube or watch at the source | Youtube thanks to @veronicaspuffy
Source | Via | Via
Rob's interview (starts at 0:54 was posted HERE), but the interviews with the rest of the cast and crew talking about Rob are new.
Emily Hampshire at 1:28. David Cronenberg at 1:46
The last two 'Cosmopolis' clips released this week now in HD and Youtube
Eric Michael Packer
The 2nd clip is under the cut :D
Was the suit Robert Pattinson wore in the film custom designed or can mere civilians get their hands on it, too?
The suit Eric wears in the film is by Gucci: the Signoria, two-button notch lapel, in black. It is definitely available to mere civilians.
It’s a great suit. When you picked it, how did you know this was the suit?
Clothes make the man. The suit, the white shirt and slim black tie, the shoes and belt (all by Gucci) helped Rob become Eric. Once Rob put the clothes on, I could feel the character, and looking at him completely dressed in the fitting, I knew I had made the right choice. And it doesn’t hurt that he wears suits beautifully.
Twenty-five years of dressing actors also helped in the decision. I actually knew it was the right suit just looking at it even before the fitting with Rob. The cut and fabric were beautiful, which is why I chose it.
Men’s style editors love to talk about wearing a suit three or four different ways; Rob’s teaching a master class on that in the film. How does each evolution (fully suited, sans tie, just the trousers and shirt) relate to Eric’s progression over the day?
After reading the script and talking to the director, it was clear that Eric wore the suit well pressed and impeccably styled in the beginning. But as his life started to unravel, his clothes would too.
I always leave room for the actor to decide just how far his shirt should be unbuttoned, or how he feels about a tie or no tie, a jacket or no jacket—whatever would help him play the scene. We (David, Rob, and I) decided Eric should never be too much of a mess.
We would have tried to take the wardrobe home after shooting wrapped. Does that ever happen?
Yes, people do take, or try to take, clothing home during and after a film. Rob did take one of his suits home (we had seven of them), but I asked him if he would like one. He has so many suits personally that he really doesn’t need any more.
You did one hell of a job dressing Rob for the film. What advice would you give him, if any, for dressing for the red carpet?
It’s not difficult to dress Rob and make him look terrific. He wears suits so well, and Gucci fits him so well. My advice to him is to keep doing exactly what he has been doing—wearing Gucci. You can’t go wrong.
And how about for daily life?
Rob's off-camera look is very relaxed, and it’s his personal taste. There’s also an element of trying to hide, with something like a baseball cap, but really, it’s comfortable. That’s who he is.
From The Playlist (click to read full article)
Catching up with Pattinson as he did press rounds for "Cosmopolis," he filled us in on what we might expect from Michôd's follow-up to his crime drama "Animal Kingdom." Set to shoot next year, "The Rover" boasts some pretty big ideas behind its deceptively simple set up. "It's a kind of a western," Pattinson explained. "It's very existential. It's really interesting. I couldn't really explain to you what it's about but it's sort of about how much pain can the world take and how much disgust and cruelty before love dies. I think that's kind of what it's about."(Cronenberg, who was in the room, chimed in with: " That sounds pretty heavy!")
Pattinson will co-star in the film with Guy Pearce, with the near-future-set story centering on a man who journeys across the Australian outback to find his stolen car, which contains something invaluable to him. However, Pattinson admits that perhaps his description might be a little more highfalutin than the actual movie. "David Michôd's going to read this and be like 'What the fuck are you talking about? It's a crime movie,' " he said with a laugh.
As for when "The Rover" is coming out, Pattinson admitted it is later than he originally wanted. "I wish it was shooting this fall," he said. "I was supposed to be doing this movie this fall but that was pushed to after 'The Rover,' which is a good thing because it needs a ton of work. But I really wish I could move 'The Rover' up. I've got to find something else to do."
ETA: Added more from Rob and Cronenberg's interview with The Playlist (click to read full article)
NEW YORK — Jon Stewart tried to bait him with Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra. "Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos offered him Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But maybe French fries would have been a better ploy to get Robert Pattinson to spill some juicy personal details about his breakup with costar Kristen Stewart.
"Media culture is a monstrous thing," Pattinson lamented Wednesday afternoon, jamming fries into his mouth between puffs on his electronic cigarette. "You can't win. The annoying thing is that you can't attack them, but you can't defend yourself. The best thing you could possibly do is punch a paparazzi and give them their big payday."
The 26-year-old actor has run a gantlet of publicity this week that was nominally about promoting his new film, "Cosmopolis,"which opens Friday. But the promotional blitz, which also included a New York premiere and other stops, seemed to be as much about proving his emotional resilience in the wake of the tabloid bonanza that exploded after photos surfaced of Stewart in compromising positions with 41-year-old Rupert Sanders, who directed her in"Snow White and the Huntsman."
Sitting alongside Pattinson for moral support at the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Columbus Circle was "Cosmopolis" director David Cronenberg. The Canadian filmmaker, whose challenging art house films almost never garner such wide attention, was there as a sort of buffer but also appeared to be quietly amused by the media circus. The actor's manager would not allow Pattinson to sit alone for an interview with The Times, and even suggested that reporters not ask him about his personal life, or "Twilight."
But "Twilight,"of course, is how Pattinson has become perhaps the most widely recognized young actor of his generation. In the movie franchise, based on Stephenie Meyer's bestselling young adult novels, he plays a brooding vampire who falls in love with a human girl (Stewart). The film series has grossed over $2.5 billion worldwide since launching in 2008 and will conclude in November with a fifth installment, "Breaking Dawn — Part 2." Pattinson's off-screen romance with Stewart only stoked the popularity of the vampire movies.
When the Stewart-Sanders affair burst onto the cover of Us Weekly in July, it initially seemed like there was little upside for Pattinson. But Stewart's public apology generated not only sympathy for the man wronged but also a fresh wave of interest for "Cosmopolis," which had premiered to mixed response at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Entertainment One picked up Cosmopolis as a finished film just ahead of its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film opened soon after its somewhat disappointing box office debut in Cronenberg’s native Canada, although the barrage of press in the U.S. surrounding the film’s main star, Robert Pattinson, and his legion of die-hard fans may provide the title some reversal of fortune at least initially. Beyond the hype, it should also play well to Cronenberg’s most ardent fans noted eOne’s VP theatrical, marketing and distribution Dylan Wiley. “I think this movie is Cronenberg at his most ‘Cronenbergiest,” said Wiley. Pattinson and Cronenberg “have a wide audience and if they catch on, we’ll take it out as wide as it will go.”Wiley noted that the natural audiences for Pattinson, Cronenberg and Cosmopolis novelist David DeLillo don’t “share much overlap,” so the potential appeal is wide. “On the marketing side, it’s about harnessing the multiple awareness we already have. Obviously Pattinson has his fan-base and Don LeLillo has his target audience. Cronenberg has a bit older, smart and affluent following along with younger males and the hipster crowd.”
Asked if the recent flurry of Pattinson-centered press that erupted following revelations of relationship trouble with his Twilight Saga co-star Kristen Stewart had changed any of their marketing or release plans, Wiley said no. “To Rob’s credit, he has fulfilled everything he’s been asked to do and more,” said Wiley. “It’s a testament to him personally and also about what he feels about this movie and what it means to him and his development as an actor. [For him] the focus has been only on the movie. He’s been very professional in keeping the focus on his work for Cosmopolis.” The film’s U.S. release this weekend had already been pre-set months ago. “We’re doing an accelerated platform release, playing the Landmark in Los Angeles and the Sunshine and Lincoln Center in New York,” said Wiley. “Cronenberg will do Q&As at Lincoln Center. We know the audiences there will be naturally huge for him because of the number of fans he has in New York, and we expect the film to play there a long time. Next week, we’ll add 20 markets and then around the 31st, we’ll add more which will bring the film up to about 50 markets.”
Deadline
