Oliver Irving and Joe Hastings Talk about Rob's Musical Side on HTB

Wow, that was a long title for a blog post huh? Live Journal community Pattinson_Music has an exclusive interview with How To Be writer/director Oliver Irving and Composer Joe Hastings. Here are the parts about to Rob and you can read the rest on Pattinson_Music.

Oh and if you missed the best news of April because you were in the "woods" for the Easter holiday: How To Be is available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk!

3. How many people auditioned for the role of Art? What was it about Robert Pattinson that got him the role?

Oliver Irving: We did auditions for this for well over a year in bursts. I feel like I must have seen every young male actor in London! I was looking for someone who would work well with the others actors I had in place to play Art’s friends. These were non-actors whose approach had been tailored while we made home movies over the years, so the actor for Art needed not to seem like he had been to drama school. Rob has said that at the time he was thinking of giving up acting and pursuing music as he was unhappy with roles he was getting offered – But pretty much straight away I knew he was right for the part. He had a sort of playful energy perhaps even naivety which he brought to the part and he really seemed to understand the characters.

5. Can you explain the process of creating the songs for the film? Were they written before filming and recorded afterwards?

Oliver Irving: The songs that art plays in the film where written by Me and Joe as we were writing the script – so there right from the start. We thought it would be fun to write these kind of clumsy songs that lay out Art’s mind state, but that contain a great little hook or melody that could be expanded to make up the score of the film…

Joe Hastings: Yes, we had songs in place for Art by late 2005 and the songs and incidental music developed as the screenplay progressed. We wrote Art’s songs together and I went away and tried to develop incidental music from Art’s ‘primitive’ tracks. The idea was to give the film a progressive aspect; for the music to shift with Art’s various moods through the film. We wanted the music to have a thematic progression and follow a melodic sensibility, and hopefully add to the overall cohesion. It was a challenge to develop distinctive arrangements that at the same time were an extension of his music.

Oliver Irving: we were adamant that they be recorded live on set as well and not re-recorded afterwards – that just sounds so phony. All the music in the film was done this way.

Joe Hastings: It was important that Rob was heard playing the tracks to add to the believability of his character, we wanted the songs to feel like ‘his’ and Rob really pulled this off.

7. What did Rob bring to the role of Art, musically speaking? Did he have any input on the composition of the songs and what guitars did Rob play during the film?

Oliver Irving: There is a great ‘jam session’ sequence where Ronny is playing his electronic stuff and Art is strumming away soulfully on the guitar while Nikki is singing away about random things. It was very funny to shoot and painful to watch!

Joe Hastings: Rob brought a kind of ownership to the music. Before the part was cast I was unsure as to whether someone could make the tracks seem real. I think Rob genuinely enjoyed playing the songs.

Rob played a battered old nylon string acoustic which Oliver ‘acquired’ from a school, we found a piece of rope in the studios we used as a set and decided that it would make the perfect guitar strap for Art. For the final sequence we deliberately chose a flashy if slightly tacky Guitar made by ‘Ovation’. It was one of those bowl backed fiber glass types that I hate, they’re the nouveau riche’s guitar of choice.

9. Lastly, since our community is for the appreciation of Rob’s music, we would love to see him continue doing music. What do you think of Rob’s musician side? Would you like to see more from him, musically?

Oliver Irving: Yes definitely – it is clearly something he really loves.

Joe Hastings: Rob is a lot better than the songs he performs in the film suggest, it’s very hard to play down your abilities in the way that Rob did so excellently in character as Art.