UPDATE: 2 more print interviews under the cut! Love what the HuffPo interviewer said about the Pretty Girl Rock scene. If you watched our press con videos and heard our questions/comments, you KNOW we take issue with how the scene is being reported. I'm soulmates with the HuffPo interviewer. And Rob of course. ;)
The second interviewer has some cool quotes about Rob's full body acting with Rey's look and more!
These gems almost got away from us! They came out during the premiere and FeistyAngel gave us the heads up about the new stills found in The Short List magazine, an extension of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Not only do we get these fantastic stills of Rob from The Rover but the interview is really good too. He talks about Life and why he wanted to play Dennis Stock. Idol's Eye and The Childhood of a Leader get a mention too, the latter said to film in September.
Check out a few more print interviews under the cut! Good bathroom material LOL
TIME Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce find solace and inspiration in The Rover's desert settingWhen making his new film, The Rover, director David Michod may have uncovered the only location on Earth where Robert Pattinson is not followed by a hoard of paparazzi. The poetically sparse film, out nationwide this Friday, takes place in a desolate world 10 years in the future after the collapse of society, and reveals what could happen if humans are forced to survive by any means necessary. To create that world, Michod took Pattinson and his co-star Guy Pearce to the Flinders Ranges in the Australian desert, an area several hours north of Adelaide with few roads and fewer people. The cast and crew spent eight weeks shooting in early 2013, moving around to various locations throughout the desert, including the town of Marree, which has a population of 90.
“I didn’t quite realize how remote a lot of it was going to be,” Pattinson tells TIME. “It’s quite a big paparazzi culture in Australia. So I was expecting more of that. I remember setting up the contract and really thinking ‘If we’re going to be shooting exteriors all the time there’s going to be tons of people around. It’s going to be awful. I’m going to be playing this part and everyone’s going to think I’m weird.’”
“For Rob to shoot in a city like here or London you’re going to have a hundred people following the film set around,” Pearce adds. “Imagine if that’s how your work environment was all the time. So it’s not surprising that Rob thought it was going to be awful. But it wasn’t like that. There was like one person and the crew stopped them. I pity that one photographer that managed to find where we were.”
It was a hot, dusty environment that lent itself to the film’s bleak narrative, which follows a weathered man named Eric (Pearce) who encounters a simpleminded young man named Rey (Pattinson) and uses him to find his stolen car. It’s a minimal premise that showcases the grittiness of this future world, packing a subtle but hefty punch at the end. For the actors, the landscape helped channel the visceral survivalist nature of the story. “You know you’re going to be out there when you read the script and you’re aware of that being an aspect of the whole piece,” Pearce notes. “You almost can hear your own heart beating and you can hear yourself breathing. That feeling of possibly left out there alone is really palpable.”
The production moved from small town to small town over the eight weeks. Pearce, who drove himself the long distances, scored a crack in his car windshield that grew each leg of the journey. Pattinson, who says he was not allowed to drive himself, found the nomadic process fascinating and unlike any of his previous filming experiences. “The driving was incredible because there’s one road,” Pattinson says. “There’s so much wildlife [that has] not quite figured out that there’s a road. Literally every day someone would hit a kangaroo. There was blood all over the cars. It was crazy.”
Michod, who wrote the initial story for The Rover with actor Joel Edgerton back in 2008, selected this as his follow-up to 2010’s Animal Kingdom, his debut feature, largely because it embraced this elemental sense of survival in a hostile place. There is little explanation of what has happened that caused society to crumble in the story, but Michod’s underlying idea feels realistically possible.
“There wasn’t one single, sudden, almost unimaginable event that destroyed everything,” the director explains. “There was just a breakdown that was, in all likelihood, caused by a Western economic collapse probably running in tandem with the effects of extreme environmental degradation. Possibly the kinds of wars that might come as a consequence of peoples and countries fighting over limited resources. My hope is that you would just generally get the sense that things have just broken apart as opposed to exploded.”
Pearce and Pattinson’s characters are our window into this broken world, one with a brutal, animalistic instinct and the other with no real method of self-preservation. Pattinson embodies Rey as a twitchy, awkward migrant worker with a deep Southern accent. Michod sees the character as “not fully comfortable his own skin” and was impressed with Pattinson’s immersion into a role that is so different than his prior work, particularly in the Twilight series.
“I didn’t have any concerns,” Michod says of casting an actor as recognizable as Pattinson. “I don’t think I really had any idea how that baggage might manifest in terms of the film is received. And if anything I really liked the idea of taking someone so recognizable and giving them something wildly different to do. I found it kind of exhilarating watching him demonstrate that he’s actually a really wonderful actor.”
“I had quite an obscure, kind of obtuse, backstory for him,” Pattinson says of Rey. “Part of the whole thing with Rey is that his brother has played all the positions in his life. He doesn’t even really have memories – maybe there are memories of a place but it’s not like he had to put any particular effort in as he was growing up. Everything is blended together. It’s like being an actor – you can’t remember anything.”
The film takes on a meditative literary quality, falling somewhere between The Road and Of Mice and Men, which makes its moments of violence even more jarring. The Rover is the first film where Pattinson has really had to use a gun and he was not entranced by the opportunity. “I’m quite anti-gun, especially for idiots like me,” Pattinson says. “I didn’t like it at all. I don’t like the feeling of it. I get the thrill and the power trip of it but I felt silly as well holding a gun, especially pointing at targets and stuff. It’s just this bang-making machine. After a while it loses its luster.”
“I, too, have a real issue with guns,” Pearce adds. “I think they should be banished off the face of the earth. They’re awful things. There is an incredible thrill and sort of power as soon as you have one in your hands. That understanding of what you’re capable of doing with this thing is off the charts. It’s ridiculous and it’s enticing and it’s awful all at the same time and it just astounds me that so many people own guns in the world.”
Seeing as this possible incarnation of the future involves a lot of weaponry and the ability to commit violent acts, would either actor survive a similar collapse? “I think I’d end up in the opium den flophouse,” Pattinson says, referencing a depressed drug den seen briefly in the film. “Just hanging out like ‘I’m good.’” Pearce agrees, “Yeah, I’d probably end up there as well.”
HitFix (excerpt) Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce say that there's hope in ‘The Rover’s' bleaknessFor Pattinson, "The Rover" proved to be another in the string of artistically ambitious efforts he’s made with his filmmaking choices outside the successful "Twilight" franchise, although he shrugs off the notion that there’s a conscious one-for-me, one-for-Hollywood strategy in play.
“I don’t really have any particular preconceived plan,” Pattinson explains. “Even each of the 'Twilight' movies – I kind of approached them all as individual movies. I never really saw it as ‘Oh, going back to work on…’” He does hope that any of the devoted Twi-hards who follow him into edgier, more demanding material like "The Rover" find something they respond to – but he doesn’t count on it. “You can’t really predict what an audience is going to like, or want, or even if they’re going to follow you to anything. I think if you try to make challenging stuff, and you put your heart into it, hopefully at least one other person is going to like it.”
...
Although "The Rover" marks Pattinson’s second foray into a dark near-future cinematic world that’s collapsing around its central characters – the first being David Cronenberg’s thriller "Cosmopolis" – the actor insists he’s not especially drawn to dystopian storytelling. “I don’t really see either of them as post-apocalyptic – I mean, I see both of them as quite hopeful as well,” he says. “I think 'Cosmopolis' was about a guy who didn’t know how to live and has one second of feeling what it’s like to be alive, which is kind of a good thing – it’s more than most people, I think. And 'The Rover' was always really hopeful.”
Really, he’s not a pessimist. “I have a very optimistic view of the world,” he chuckles, “mainly because I like my life.”
Sydney Morning Herald Robert Pattinson talks about his new film, The Rover, with Dave O'NeilI’m at a bar drinking with Robert Pattinson. You know, he’s famous – he was Edward the vampire in Twilight. After a few hours together we’re practically good mates – except something has come between us. It’s a large body of mass called Dean.
Dean is Rob’s bodyguard and where Rob goes, so does Dean. Seriously, it’s like President Obama is turning up. Dean comes in first, checks the exits, liaises with the bar’s security and then finally gives the OK for Rob to enter. And Dean doesn’t sit down. He’s an ex-marine and he’s always standing, scoping and assessing the risk factors of the situation. And it seems I’m the number one suspect. Maybe he thinks I’m a werewolf, 'cause if you know anything about Twilight you know the vampires and the werewolves don’t really get along.
And sure, I possibly don’t belong at this party. It’s full of Australia’s acting elite. There’s Guy Pearce chatting to Anthony Hayes, there’s Dan Wyllie having beers with Bryan Brown and then there’s me. More than one person asks me, "You look familiar – what did you do on this movie?" "Ahhh, silent partner in the catering" was all I could come up with. After a few drinks I did add that I was in the movie The Nugget.
In a way I feel sorry Rob, or RPatz as his fans know him. He’s probably never seen The Nugget. No, he’s a genuine teen idol, the likes of whom we haven’t seen since Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio. How did he know this small movie about a vampire who falls in love with a mere mortal would be such a phenomenon? He captured the hearts of millions of teenage girls and their mothers. And because of his real-life romance with Kristen Stewart, the actress who played the romantic interest, the press went into overdrive. It was the perfect storm: a cult book that turned into a massive film with two young stars who were in love with each other on screen and off. It also marked the start of the social media frenzy, with Twitter just starting to have an impact. Sightings of RPatz and KStew were tweeted and the fans turned up alongside the paparazzi. I expect this is when Dean entered the picture. When going to the shops becomes a problem, you need a big bloke to step in. He’d probably be handy carrying the shopping too. Who knows, maybe he’s a bit like Alfred the butler from Batman – an all-round handy guy. Do they learn how to cook in the marines?
So, five movies later, Rob is trying to shake that Twilight tag, and part of that process is appearing in David Michod’s new film The Rover. And Rob, my good mate, is very good in it. He does a great double act with Guy Pearce and plays a convincing simple boy from America's deep south. I tell Rob this and let him know that he should do a comedy. "I reckon every movie I do is a comedy," he replies. Touché. So, he did watch the last Twilight installment.
I sense Dean, head of RPatz security, has sensed me, so I try and talk to him. After all my dad was a marine. OK, he was a mechanic in the air force, but it's a similar uniform. Dean gives me nothing. Would you like a drink? No answer. I ask him if it’s fun travelling around the world? No answer. Well, I suppose this beats telling kids to stop throwing pickles on the ceiling at McDonalds on a Saturday night? No laugh, no smile, just a slight twitch of the face. I mean, I understand Dean has seen some bad things in his time – middle-aged German women stalking Rob around the globe, paparazzi relentlessly pursuing this guy for a photo of his latest romance and as a marine, maybe some worse stuff in the Gulf war.
And then Rob lights a cigarette inside the bar. Yeah, this is old-school Hollywood style, something Jack Nicholson would do. Who cares about the rules? Dean swings into action, whisking his young movie star from the bar. It’s a precise military action; it was like he was never there. I started to wonder why this happened, then I realised. Rob was giving Dean a sign. It was the "Get me out of here" signal. I realise this because it was just after I pulled out my Twilight board game and asked Rob to sign it. It wasn’t for me of course, it was for my little friend called eBay. Oh well, if anyone wants an unsigned Twilight board game, I’ve got one. And go and see The Rover, it’s very good, mainly 'cause my mate’s in it.
UPDATE:
Huffington Post Robert Pattinson Doesn't Know How To Play A Normal Guy Robert Pattinson is tired.
The 28-year-old has spent the better part of the last month doing press for David Michôd's "The Rover," a slow-burn thriller that's caked in equal parts dirt, dried blood and nihilism. Pattinson has appeared on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter. He's done interviews with BuzzFeed, The Daily Beast, Indiewire, Jimmy Kimmel and, now, The Huffington Post. "It was good in theory," Pattinson said of the press gauntlet, before trailing off.
Fortunately, the performance Pattinson is promoting is one of his best yet. He plays Rey in "The Rover," a simple-minded criminal who gets left for dead by his brother in post-apocalyptic Australia and then goes on a journey of revenge with Eric (Guy Pearce), a man also wronged by Rey's sibling.
"I think lots of people want to do stuff that's relatable, and I want to do stuff that's unrelatable," Pattinson said of his career outlook in general. "I don't think I have particularly normal emotional reactions to things. So trying to play someone who is just a normal guy ... I don't really know how to do it."
HuffPost Entertainment spoke to Pattinson at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan about "The Rover," his relationship with tabloid media and the never-ending cycle of rumors about his career.
You've worked with these incredible directors: David Michôd, Werner Herzog, David Cronenberg and, soon, Olivier Assayas. What are you gleaning from those experiences?
It's just going to school. I think that's exactly what I'm doing. I think a lot of actors know what they have in them, and they kind of work with directors who help them do the specific thing that they already want. I have no idea what I have! I'm just kind of hoping something will happen if I work with Herzog or Cronenberg.
A lot of coverage surrounding your performance in "The Rover" is couched in headlines about how this film puts "Twilight" behind you. But "Twilight" was two years ago, and it felt like "Cosmopolis" already "put 'Twilight' behind you." Does that narrative get annoying?
I guess when certain people ask me, it's kind of annoying. Like, "How do you feel about everyone seeing stuff differently?" It's kind of insulting. "So you're saying all the stuff I did before was shit? Thanks, man!" I always forget how little people actually know you. You feel like you've done so many interviews, but most people have just seen a couple movies. Maybe! Or just seen you in a tabloid or something. You kind of forget that when you're in the center of it.
So much was made about you singing "Pretty Girl Rock" after the Cannes premiere that I expected it to be a much bigger moment. But it's kind of subdued and melancholy. Did the response that scene received surprise you at all?
The one thing I was thinking was that there was some kind of meta, breaking-the-fourth-wall thing happening, because of all the "Twilight" stuff. But it's really not that, and that's the one thing I was afraid of it being. Obviously people started bringing it up thinking it's a comment on something.
I guess? I don’t know why they would think that.
Because people love all that stuff. I always read film reviews, and so many always love it when the movie is winking at itself and it's being self aware. Who wants that? It's crazy! So I didn't want it to seem like it was self aware. I like it, though. When the song cuts in, that's the funniest part. It's so loud. He's skipping behind Guy afterward. Do you know those guys who recut "The Shining" trailer? It's like suddenly the movie becomes that moment.
Do you actually read reviews?
Yeah. I don't quite know why. It's so difficult to figure out if you're doing the right thing. I guess there's some way of knowing after reading, sort of. But sometimes it's just incredible how opposite everything can be. It's bizarre. You learn absolutely nothing after, and you just hate bad reviews. You can't even remember the good ones.
On the topic of reading things about yourself: There was a story recently that claimed you were being sought for Indiana Jones. How do you find out about ridiculous casting rumors like that? Google alerts?
On the press tour. I had no idea. I swear it's people who know it's going to generate tons of bad publicity for me. There will be one totally random article not based on anything, and then there are 50 afterwards totally slamming me. It's like, "I didn't even say anything!"
You've been in the public eye for a while now, but does it still surprise you how much false information is published about you?
It's really crazy. With me as well, it's the same stories again and again and again. No matter what. I was trying to figure out a way to not be in tabloids anymore, and I just don't even know how to do it. I thought if you don't get photographed then they can't do anything.
No, it doesn't matter.
No, they put, like, five-year-old photographs in articles.
You seem to have very eclectic tastes. Do you ever worry about playing a movie-star game, where you do one for them and one for you?
I'm not entirely sure how it works. I've seen other actors who try to do that, or just done studio movie after studio movie, and then suddenly it just ends. So, I don't really know what the game is. I just kind of think if there's at least one element that you can guarantee is going to bring some kind of fulfillment to your life -- which is in a lot of ways working with someone who is just kind of a hero -- than even if the movie is terrible, you know something [positive] will happen just to say you did it.
Star Tribune Actor Robert Pattinson goes from 'Twilight' to darknessYoung-adult blockbusters deal in uncomplicated emotions that make them a poor actors’ showcase. Robert Pattinson’s career-launching five-year tour on the “Twilight” series gave him worldwide stardom and wealth, but not the thing he wanted most: respectability.
Even before the “Twilight” series concluded, Pattinson was stretching his range in smaller films. He played the 18-year-old but fully eccentric Salvador Dali in the Spanish-British gay love drama “Little Ashes,” and a scandal-mongering Parisian journalist in “Bel Ami.” He also took romantic leading roles in Hollywood’s “Think of Me” and “Water for Elephants,” but his mind was on more ambitious fare.
Which is why he’s starring as a grubby, violent, mental defective in the Australian suspense thriller “The Rover.” It’s an in-your-face change of pace that puts the British-born actor alongside the intense Guy Pearce. The pair play reluctant allies chasing cutthroats across the desolate Outback. Pattinson has won the best reviews of his career as a fidgeting misfit with a stuttering Florida twang.
The film was shot literally at the end of the road, he explained in a recent phone conversation. “It was where the tarmac ended. Then it was dirt road for another 2,000 miles to the other end of Australia.” The main location, a squalid village, has a population of “40 or 50, in the middle of nowhere.”
Though the conditions were rough, “there’s something really fun about having everyone together,” he said. “There’s a holiday element of it, as well. I enjoyed it.” But it wasn’t the stripped-down production that appealed as much as the lightly written role, offering wide latitude for a performer to make it his own. The screenplay is by director David Michôd and Joel Edgerton, both of whom are also actors.
“There’s something so special in the dialogue,” so terse it makes David Mamet sound gabby. “There’s just these two dialogue scenes that reveal things in an obtuse way about the character in the midst of these massive silences. I knew I’d have to bring tons to the table.”
“I thought it was funny when I first read it,” Pattinson said. Still, his audition meeting with the filmmakers was an endurance test. “I’m not the kind of actor who can just walk in and hang it out immediately. There’s just like a whole bunch of different neuroses I have to deal with first,” he said with a laugh. “The audition was like four hours long. The first 30 minutes I was in total panic mode, not able to really do anything. As soon as we got through that initial barrier, it was a lot easier. David definitely understands that.”
Pattinson had lots of leeway in creating his character’s stumbling speech patterns and desert derelict look. His hair is buzzed short and cropped high in the back, revealing a length of neck that looks vulnerable and ax-ready. “I liked the idea of seeing that bone at the bottom of your skull,” he said. I realized that when you’ve just got a fuzzy hairball, like a Q-Tip head, and you’re doing an over-the-shoulder shot, you can see the tendons in the back of your neck and stuff. You can still kind of do things, even when the camera’s not on your face. You’re still part of the scene.”
Alongside “The Rover’s” premiere at Cannes, Pattinson also presented his second collaboration with David Cronenberg, the blistering film-industry satire “Maps to the Stars.” If that nose-thumbing bruises any egos in the movie establishment, it won’t slow Pattinson’s indie-oriented momentum a bit. He has projects lined up with Harmony Korine (“Spring Breakers”), James Gray (“The Immigrant”) and Werner Herzog, whose “Rescue Dawn” gave Christian Bale a change of pace from his run as Batman.
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