Robert Pat­tin­son: ​‘I want to do a Godard movie’

Robert Pattinson’s star pow­er still burns across the globe but all he wants to do with it is make inter­est­ing art house movies. David Michôd’s The Rover fits that bill. In it, Pat­tin­son stars oppo­site Guy Pearce as a splash of human­i­ty in a vio­lent vision of post-apoc­a­lyp­tic Aus­tralia. LWLies spoke to him at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, where he also had David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars on the docket.

LWLies: David Michôd has said that there’s a very angry man – aka him – at the heart of The Rover. What emo­tions did you draw from for it and what emo­tions do you think it conjures?

Pat­tin­son: It def­i­nite­ly con­jures a lot of dread and anx­i­ety but it was the char­ac­ter I was read­ing from. Also the first thing I con­nect­ed to was pure­ly a styl­is­tic thing. Clean writ­ing and also hav­ing it so stark. It was so orig­i­nal, even the way it looked on the page.

What did you find inter­est­ing about Rey when he first came into your life?

I thought it was quite inter­est­ing to read some­thing where you actu­al­ly can’t tell if the guy’s men­tal­ly hand­i­capped or not. I asked David at the begin­ning in the audi­tions whether he was or not and he was like, ​‘I don’t know. Maybe’ and then we estab­lished that he was some­one who has just been real­ly severe­ly bul­lied or some­one that has been told that he’s men­tal­ly hand­i­capped his whole life but it’s more to do with con­fi­dence. He’s real­ly shy and peo­ple around him, his fam­i­ly, are real­ly rough and have been slap­ping him around his whole life and so he’s decid­ed that he can’t be his own per­son. He’s nev­er even attempt­ed to think for him­self or speak for him­self or any­thing. It was inter­est­ing, the only time when he is his own per­son is when a hor­ri­ble man forces him into it.

He goes from being the only peace­ful per­son left alive to not being that anymore.

I don’t think he even real­ly knows what’s hap­pen­ing. I think you can force any­one to be any­thing. Eric is try­ing to make Rey more like him. I guess Rey sort of does become just like Eric in the end. He’s been forced to be some­one who he’s not, even though it’s out of his com­fort zone. He is bet­ter. He can stand up for him­self a lit­tle more but it’s in this total­ly back­ward and weird way that’s com­plete­ly point­less. And I think Eric looks at what he’s done. He’s cre­at­ed a mon­ster and can see him­self for this first time and it makes him reflect. With Rey I was always inter­est­ed in that dynam­ic where a hus­band is beat­ing up their wife and the wife keeps com­ing back all the time and the worse the hus­band is the more the woman thinks he loves her and I like trans­fer­ring that to the rela­tion­ship of Rey and Eric slight­ly. I kept think­ing that I hadn’t real­ly seen that in a movie. I was kind of look­ing at it as a love sto­ry. There were scenes where I was try­ing to flirt with Guy.

Was he recep­tive to your advances?

He had no idea. Nei­ther did David. I said half-way through, ​‘You know I’m play­ing this as a love sto­ry.’ In one scene when he was kick­ing me I tried to put my hand up the back of his shorts. It was cut out of the movie.

Rey has a lot of dis­tinc­tive vocal and phys­i­cal traits. Did they come from you or were they some­thing David told you to adopt?

I kind of did it before. It’s a lit­tle bit based on my cousin and also just extreme dis­com­fort in your­self. Rey’s spent his whole life try­ing to hide, even inside him­self and in how he’s speak­ing. He doesn’t want any­one to real­ly hear him. I imag­ine those lit­tle slight­ly annoy­ing dogs that peo­ple have spent their whole lives kick­ing away. And he just keeps flop­ping around chas­ing after peo­ple. He hasn’t toughed up at all. He’s just this flop­py, mal­co-ordi­nat­ed kid.

I read that Guy Pearce said it was a very heavy atmos­phere on set.

Real­ly?

Was that not your experience?

No, I thought it was real­ly fun. It was so relaxed. Play­ing a part like that there are no parom­e­ters to it. You just turn up and have no idea what you’re doing every day. You can be loose.

So you had fun in a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic vision of the future?

It was real­ly fun. Just being out in the mid­dle of nowhere. Also the crew was all stay­ing in the same place and you nev­er nor­mal­ly get that. As an actor, you usu­al­ly go to an unfa­mil­iar city but then every­one else lives in the city so they go home and you just go back to your hotel and it’s lame but this meant I was able to hang out with every­one else. It was amaz­ing. It was real­ly fun. I had such a good time.

Where does it rank in the fun movie shoots of your life scale?

Very, very close to the top.

What’s above it?

Prob­a­bly the first movie I ever did. Being 16 or 17. They give you your own apart­ment and stuff. Shoot­ing in Cape Town. It’s prob­a­bly why I’m still act­ing. It’s ridicu­lous. How did this happen?

How do you find this expe­ri­ence, the media cir­cus that you have to per­form in that goes along with being an actor?

It’s so weird. I have such a dis­con­nect. It’s real­ly strange. Espe­cial­ly here in Cannes because I’m always so hun­gover. It was the Maps to the Stars pre­mière last night and we went to the after-par­ty. I keep for­get­ting I have to work. Yes­ter­day I did a whole day of inter­views and I lit­er­al­ly can’t remem­ber a sin­gle thing I said. I start pan­ick­ing at the end of sen­tences and think­ing, ​‘I can’t remem­ber words.’

It must be weird hav­ing the expec­ta­tion that you must make sense at any giv­en moment in time.

I know! At the Maps to the Stars press con­fer­ence every­one was so artic­u­late. And I was like [makes nois­es] the De Niro style of doing inter­views. I can’t think quick­ly enough. I need to plan my answers. It’s amaz­ing how artic­u­late most actors are. Evan [Bird] is like 13 and I’m think­ing, ​‘How are you answer­ing? This is your first ever interview!’

Maybe that fresh­ness helps.

I find that with inter­views I did have a lot of fun at the begin­ning because I didn’t realise that any­one actu­al­ly read them. So there’s no respon­si­bil­i­ty what­so­ev­er. You’re basi­cal­ly try­ing to tell jokes and then you realise that peo­ple remem­ber and it’s writ­ten down and they ask you about it after and then you start to close down.
Also you don’t real­ly want peo­ple to know who you are. It’s just the worst thing that can hap­pen for an actor. It’s not even about them know­ing who you are. It’s just say­ing enough stuff to make peo­ple think you’re a cer­tain kind of thing. When I first start­ed I had so many prob­lems with peo­ple think­ing, ​‘Oh he’s just a pri­vate school Eng­lish kid.’ No one want­ed to put me in dif­fer­ent parts because of that. Now peo­ple don’t even think I’m Eng­lish any­more and that’s the Twi­light bag­gage and I’m just com­ing out of that now. But it’s weird. It’s fun­ny how things change. It’s like four years of hav­ing one pub­lic persona.

You’ve done a pret­ty good job of turn­ing around per­cep­tions. I was look­ing at what you’ve got com­ing out, and Wern­er Her­zog was there. Does he direct in that extra­or­di­nary monotone?

Yes, it’s ridicu­lous. He’s so fun­ny it’s insane because he wrote the script as well and it’s one of the most dif­fi­cult scripts. It’s only a small part. I remem­ber my first scene with Nicole Kid­man and it’s some­thing about the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Turkey and then Wern­er comes up and he says, ​‘This line is a joke! Say it as a joke! And I was like, ​‘What?! What are you talk­ing about?’ And then he just walks off and says, ​‘It’s fun­ny, it’s fun­ny.’ Nicole said, ​‘Good luck’. But Werner’s great. He’s exact­ly what you’d expect. He’s got so many amaz­ing sto­ries. On every sin­gle sto­ry he’s got an insid­er story.

He’s also got this con­stant exis­ten­tial aware­ness that’s quite sooth­ing. I don’t know if you find it soothing?

He’s got this insane con­fi­dence as well. I think that’s where it all comes from. He’s got 100 per­cent belief in him­self. It’s a lit­tle bit like Cro­nen­berg so you feel fine to say, ​‘Yes, I’ll just do what­ev­er you say’

What did it require of you to manœu­vre from the block­buster super-high­way to the art­house sidepath?

It just took quite a long time. Cos­mopo­lis real­ly changed every­thing. I’m basi­cal­ly just try­ing to recre­ate my DVD shelf from when I was 17. I’ve got my list of 20 directors.

Hit me.

I’ve crossed off like nine just over the last few years! Who else did I wan­na get? Paul Thomas Ander­son because every­body does; Jacques Audi­ard, Alfon­so Cuarón. I want to do a Godard movie. I’m doing Har­mo­ny Korine, James Gray, Olivi­er Assayas and James Marsh.

You got to exer­cise your singing mus­cles in The Rover. Will you be releas­ing your ver­sion of ​‘Pret­ty Girl Rock’?

I’d nev­er heard that song before David played it. I love that Rey would know all the words to that song. One of the more embar­rass­ing things to do is to sit there and lis­ten to it con­stant­ly. I’m so bad at remem­ber­ing lyrics so I just had it play­ing con­stant­ly in my hotel room. It’s so catchy as well. But yeah. I’m def­i­nite­ly going to be releas­ing a cov­er version.

What role does music play for you in your life?

Not as much as it used to. I’ve got into a lit­tle bit of stag­na­tion with music and I don’t know why. I’ve found a few dif­fer­ent peo­ple recent­ly but it’s weird how you can just stop lis­ten­ing to music some­times. I don’t know. I’m try­ing to get back into it again now. I used to always lis­ten to music when I was on set and use it for inspi­ra­tion and I just don’t real­ly. I just lis­ten to rap all the time.

What do you love about movies?

When I first realised I real­ly want­ed to be involved in the indus­try I remem­bered and this is a very, very vague answer and I don’t even know what I’m say­ing, I remem­ber watch­ing One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and for some rea­son want­i­ng to be that char­ac­ter after­wards. Being inspired. Pre­tend­ing to be some­thing else gives you con­fi­dence, even if it’s a false con­fi­dence for a sec­ond but I think it stays with you after­wards. I remem­ber watch­ing that and watch­ing A Clock­work Orange and they both did the same thing. I was extreme­ly shy when I was a kid. It was that movie that for some bizarre rea­son had me dress­ing up as Ran­dle McMur­phy. They’re the best mass edu­ca­tion tools as well. Oh no, I’m too hungover…