Little Ashes Producer talks about Rob's casting

Amanda Bell, Twilight Examiner interviewed Little Ashes producer Carlo Dusi. Dusi is also the producer of The Absinthe Drinkers with Peter Facinelli. He talks about the creation process of Little Ashes and of course our Robvador (too much? Robward was good, RobArt is cute but maybe not Robvador? Well, we'll keep it for now:))

Here are the parts where he talks about Robert Pattinson:

Speaking of the cast of Little Ashes, I asked Mr. Dusi what his role in cast selection – specifically in choosing Robert Pattinson for Salvador Dali, Javier Beltran as Federico, and Matthew McNulty for Luis – was in the film.

Says Dusi,

The process was different for each of these actors, as Javier was brought to us by our wonderful Spanish casting director Merce’ Espelleta, who found him straight out of acting school, and his audition simply blew all of us away. Merce’ also brought us the fabulous Marina Gatell (who is a very well-known television actress in Spain) for the role of Magdalena Mera, and again it was her consistently strong readings that won us all over. Robert had been on my radar for some time, as I had actually got him to read for a role in a pilot for a feature film that I made in 2006, and while he was too young for that particular role I had already been extremely impressed by his screen presence and his acting ability. When our dates for the shoot of Little Ashes were confirmed and we went back into the market to find our Salvador Dali’ in Britain, he was immediately one of our shortlist, and his reading for the role left us all in no doubt that he was the right person for the role. Of course no-one could have imagined at the time how his career would have soared so soon after our shoot, but we could all tell that there was a very special quality to him, as well as huge talent and integrity as an actor. Finally, as regards the role of Bunuel we had had another actor interested in principle in the role for some time prior to the shoot, but by the time we could confirmed dates he was no longer available, and we were left casting this key role with only a couple of weeks before the start of the shoot. We picked who we wanted to see for the role very carefully, and Matthew was always our favourite as his work to date was extremely strong. Our director was already in Spain and I was away from London when we got him to read, so we all had to make our decision based on a DVD of his audition, but even so Matthew’s incredible talent shone through, and we immediately brought him on board and flew him out to Barcelona to rehearse.


About the actors, I asked Carlo Dusi what he thought made them just right for their respective parts. He said,

Each of them is an extremely committed, technically excellent and very gifted actor, which would have been the pre-requisite in all instances given the complexity of Philippa's beautiful characters and the beauty of their language and journey, but I also believe that we did manage to tie each role to specific characteristics of the actor playing it. Javier has a very special sensitivity and vulnerability, as well as a quiet dignity and elegance, which gave him the perfect basis on which to build the persona of Federico Garcia Lorca. Matthew has an incredible energy and inner strength, as well as poise and wisdom well beyond his years, and while in reality being much smaller physically than the real Bunuel he managed to compensate for this with his phenomenal screen presence – so much so that both Paul and I were quite taken aback when we first met him in Barcelona as we were expecting someone much bigger and taller from the audition DVD! Finally, Robert is himself an incredibly intense, artistic and complex character whose intelligence immediately tapped into both the insecure side of Dali’s personality as well as his flamboyance, and the arc that he managed to create for Dali’s journey during the film is a real testament to his craft as an actor.

Check out the whole interview HERE where Dusi talks about Facinelli's Absinthe Drinkers.