“Plus we’re both dual-disorder”
When Agatha Weiss returns to Los Angeles, she makes an instant connection with the first person she encounters: her limo driver, a would-be screenwriter who chauffeurs the far more successful, and who becomes increasingly entangled in her larger-than-life drama. Taking the role of Jerome is leading star Robert Pattinson, who wanted to work with Cronenberg again on the heels of taking the lead role in Cosmopolis (coincidentally, Pattinson played a billionaire who is a limo passenger throughout that film.)
He was one of the first cast members to sign on, which Martin Katz says helped buy the project. “Robert’s enthusiasm for Maps to the Stars is one of the things that really got us underway. Jerome is not a large role but it’s very significant in the story and his joining the cast gave us a terrific amount of momentum,” recalls the producer. “In a sense he is playing Bruce Wagner, who was himself at one time a limo driver and unemployed writer.”
Cronenberg was thrilled to reunite with Pattinson, and in such a different kind of role. “I think Rob was really happy to be part of an ensemble,” he says. “But Jerome is also a critical character, a lovely character and it was a chance for Rob to give a more naturalistic performance. I knew he would be fabulous and he was.”
Pattinson’s experience working on Cosmopolis with Cronenberg was so profound that he agreed to the role of Jerome before reading the script. But when he finally sat down to read it, he recalls, “Within two pages I was thinking wow, this is so unbelievably different and hilarious. I don't even know what people are going to make of this, but it feels dangerous. It’s sort of satirical but it’s also a ghost story and it’s also a kind of thriller. It defies genre.”
He came to see Maps To The Stars as more than just another L.A. story. “It’s really about people who lie to themselves – right up until the end,” he summarizes.
Yet within all that, Pattinson sees Jerome as the most ordinary of the film’s roster of outrageously deluded and desperate characters -- typical of a certain kind of everyday L.A. dreamer, a regular guy with a regular job who nevertheless always believes he is just one move away from becoming a major actor and writer.
“Jerome would never accept that he is just a limo driver. I think he feels he’s just waiting for his break,” Pattinson observes. “And yet, he’s seemingly the only one in this story who's not going insane -- or who isn’t a ghost. He's a fairly normal guy, which is slightly odd for me, as well.”
Working with his fellow cast members was another big draw for Pattison. Of Julianne Moore, he says: “She’s hilarious and also very sane, which is kind of ironic given who Havana Segrand is. And she shifts so subtly into character, you barely notice what she is doing. It’s kind of amazing.”
He worked most closely with Mia Wasikowska as Agatha, who comes to rely on Jerome as her sole friend in the city. “I knew Mia was going to be wonderful in this,” he says. “She’s so lovely that it was horrible for me to watch Agatha be bullied by her entire family.”
For Cronenberg, the chance to work with cast members like Pattinson and Gadon multiple times is one of the most gratifying aspects of his career. “It's really beautiful for me to see that blossoming and the evolution of actors as I work with them,” he concludes.
Summary of the Production Notes
- Pages 1 - 3 -> Bruce Wagner, David Cronenberg and Martin Katz talk about the script and production
- Pages 4 - 10 -> Characters--- 4 - 5 -> Havana and Clarice (comments from Julianne Moore and Cronenberg)--- 5 - 8 -> The Weiss Family (comments from Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Evan Bird, Olivia Williams, Croneberg and Katz)--- 9 - 10 -> The Limo Driver (comments from Rob, Cronenberg and Katz). Posted above.
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