It's Day 3 of the Robert Pattinson publicity tour, an event marked by widespread curiosity about ... well ... you know.
Yesterday,
he was given ice cream on "The Daily Show" as a setup for Jon Stewart's
humorous effort to dish with him about relationship breakups. This
morning, it was George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America" who
offered him breakfast cereal.
Is the 26-year-old actor tired of getting media food bribes? "Food bribes," he repeats rather quizzically. "Oh
yeah, I got offered some Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal this morning. I
don't even know (why). I haven't had Cinnamon Toast Crunch for about six
years. I actually ate some french fries just before these interviews. I
had a carbohydrate O.D."
The pleasant British chap
talking on the phone could be any hot young star promoting a movie.
Except that he's not just anyone. He's RPattz, the hunk from the
phenomenally successful "Twilight" films who's making his first public
forays since his long-rumored girlfriend and "Twilight" costar Kristen
Stewart made their relationship official. With a public apology to him.
After some photos surfaced of her dalliance with her "Snow White and the
Huntsman" director. Which caused an online/celebrity media frenzy
approaching the level of the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes split.
Awkward!
Only Pattinson is handling it about as well as anyone could. He's
already made it clear on his TV appearances that he isn't going to
discuss such personal matters.
During this interview, he politely
deflects a question about the comparisons between the movie's strange
world and the weird celebrity-driven culture that surrounds him. "I don't know if our culture is celebrity-driven at all," he says. "I think it just drives itself."
He
sounds quite levelheaded and likable as he talks about "Cosmopolis,"
his new movie opening Friday in metro Detroit. The unusual film is
loaded with metaphors and big statements on capitalism, technology,
wealth, fear, paranoia, ambition and emotional isolation. But its
leading man seems refreshingly uncomplicated.
"It's a guy who's having a strange day," he says with a laugh in what could be the understatement of the month.
Directed
by David Cronenberg, a modern master of weird cinematic think pieces,
"Cosmopolis" explores where society is going -- or the rather bleak
place it already may have arrived. Drenched with elaborate, almost
free-verse dialogue, it gives Pattinson an opportunity to veer as far as
possible from the mainstream romantic melodrama of "Twilight."
The
action centers on Eric Packer, a young king of Wall Street whose
billion-dollar empire is crumbling with the shifting sands of monetary
exchange rates. As Eric spends most of the day riding around in a
limousine, he meets with employees, watches angry protests erupting in
the streets and, yes, has a medical checkup inside his limo that
includes a prostate exam.
The screenplay by Cronenberg is based
on the 2003 novel by Don DeLillo, an author who, like Cronenberg, is
known for intellectually hefty, psychologically jarring material. Long
before the Occupy Wall Street movement, DeLillo saw the growing divide
between the 99% and the financial tycoons who make money by moving money
around.
Although "Cosmopolis" has a chilly, otherworldly feel to
it, Cronenberg, who is joining Pattinson for interviews, doesn't think
it's that removed from the world we live in. "Don (DeLillo) really had
his finger on the pulse of what was happening at the time and it's just
emerged more clearly now," he says. "I don't think it's futuristic at
all. I think it's actually pretty strangely accurate."
On this
particular week, Pattinson has been generating megawatts of promotion
for the sort of film that normally would have to compete mightily for
attention.
Even without the current gossip frenzy, Pattinson's
"Twilight" fame -- the final installment, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking
Dawn -- Part 2" opens Nov. 16 -- has put him constantly in the public
eye over the past few years. He's been using that cachet to take
challenging roles in smaller films and work with directors he admires.
He's reportedly set to star next in Werner Herzog's "Queen of the
Desert" as T.E. Lawrence -- the British figure played by Peter O'Toole
in "Lawrence of Arabia."
Pattinson has an easy explanation for why he wanted to work with Cronenberg. "My main thing is that David is consistently good," he says. "There
are very, very few people who have been good twice in a row, let alone
for a long time, and very few people who have been good once."
For Cronenberg, casting the role of Eric Packer was critical, "because
this character is in absolutely every scene in the movie, without
exception, so you've got to get the right guy. It is a case of even
beyond the norm, that if you miscast it, you've killed your movie."
To prepare for "Cosmopolis," Pattinson concentrated on the screenplay. "When
I first read it, I really, really just enjoyed the cadence and the
rhythm in the writing. I wanted to read it out loud as soon as I started
reading it."
Cronenberg says he was surprised, "in a great way,"
by his leading man every day, noting that Pattinson brought subtleties
and nuances to the character and shifted from vulnerable and soft to
hard, cold and crystalline at unexpected times.
"I
loved the way that he was very attentive and very sensitive to what the
other actors were doing, which meant that his performance would become
very, very modulated and subtle and curvy and have many twists and turns
to it."
The bizarre world of "Cosmopolis" is familiar
territory for Cronenberg, whose films include 1988's "Dead Ringers," a
thriller about twin gynecologists played by Jeremy Irons, and 1986's
"The Fly," the remake with Jeff Goldblum that spared no ickiness in
showing how a man morphs into an insect. But Cronenberg speaks more like
a wise professor than an eccentric artist.
"We had a lot of laughs," the director says of making "Cosmopolis," which was shot in about a month in Toronto. "It
was a lot of fun. Making a movie, when it works, when you've got the
right people, is a lot of fun. It's like child's play, literally, in the
best sense."
And Pattinson, far from being the brooding
figure of his sparkly vampire alter ego Edward Cullen, or having the
jaded, melancholy arrogance of Eric Packer, comes across as someone at a
healthy remove from his own fame and the darker themes of "Cosmopolis."
"I
think the movie's really funny. My initial thought about it was how
funny it was. It was hilarious, the script. It was a really very light
set. It wasn't like making a -- I can't even think of a director who's
very somber -- a Tarkovsky movie," he says, citing the stark style of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky.
As
Pattinson approaches life after "Twilight," he sounds ready for new
challenges. He has no problem distinguishing projects that want him on
board as an actor from those that just want his marquee value. "It's generally pretty obvious," he says.
"If it's purely for financing, you can tell in two seconds. And really,
only bad directors want that, or people who just don't care about what
they're making."
He's clear about how he makes his career choices. "You pick things for a lot of different reasons," he says.
"But one thing I like doing is ... things that are not really provided
for in the film marketplace. I like the idea of trying to contribute in
some way."
So it helps if a project isn't so marketable? Says Pattinson with a laugh, "Generally, the less marketable, the better for me."
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