Rob talks about the calmness the animals brought to the WFE set and about his new dog.
Also after the cut read what Reese had to say about working with him.
LOS ANGELES – “She is quite a flirt,” the 24-year-old heartthrob, Robert Pattinson, said of his 9,000-pound co-star, Tai, the lovable pachyderm in his latest action-drama movie, “Water for Elephants.”
The feeling is mutual as the “Twilight” sensation kisses the trunk of Tai during our pictorial with both of them in the parking lot of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.
“Tai has done more movies than me,” Robert said blushing. Tai, who lives in Perris, California with principal trainer Gary Johnson, is a motion picture veteran who has done several movies already including “Bigger than Life” and “The Jungle Book.”
Based on Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel of the same title, the movie is about Jacob Jankowski (Robert), a vet student, who falls in love with The Benzini Bros. Circus’ star performer, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), who is married to the controlling ringleader and circus owner, August (Christoph Waltz). Jacob and Marlena become closer to each other when both take care of Rosie the Elephant (Tai) who is nearly nine feet tall.
So how did he bond with his new pet love, we asked. “I don’t know if there was a real trick to the special bonding,” he said. “I just fed her a lot of peppermints. That’s about it. That’s the way to get an elephant to like you. Feed it Jelly Beans and peppermints every time you see them and then she started following me around. But I don’t know if I learned a lot about elephants in general. Tai is unique in just being so intelligent. She is phenomenally intelligent and she could even do impressions of other animals. It was totally ridiculous. She was kind of a freak among the elephants but I like them. I had an amazing time working with her.”
Robert admitted that working with animals gave him a different perspective on animals. “It’s definitely a totally different experience being on a set where there are a lot of animals,” he revealed. “There’s a calm that it creates. People are a lot happier. Nobody was complaining about anything every single day. I guess it provides a perspective on what you’re doing when you see an elephant that is just kind of content with pretty much anything if you give him some food. I treat animals in many ways the same as I treat people. I’ve met a bunch of new people on the job. God, that sounds like I’m completely insane.” He laughed.
Robert, who lost a dog last year, just adopted a new one from a shelter recently. “His name is Bear,” he disclosed. “He’s just a mutt from a shelter and he had this thing called Parvo. We took him to the vet. I don’t know but I think I am the kind of person who will adopt a whole shelter. In fact, if I were an animal, I would be a dog. A dog kind of fits into my lifestyle quite easily sitting around watching TV, doing nothing.”
With the last installment of the “Twilight” series almost over, Robert revealed he would love to have more control over the jobs he do. “I hope my career will allow me to do that as I get older,” he confessed.
But what he is really looking forward to, he said, is “to be able to live in a neighborhood without worrying that people are going to break into my house. I’m pretty happy with things really. I’d like to write some of my own material and have a little bit more time to do jobs rather than being a rush through everything. And maybe, do movies where it doesn’t mention ‘Twilight’ in the first line every single time. I’ll see what happens.”
After The Cut you can read what Reese had to say about working with Rob
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