Robert Pattinson was looking for time out of the spotlight
But then he received the script for Cosmopolis: ‘ This has really reinvigorated my ideas about acting,’ Twilight heartthrob says
TORONTO — Before taking on the role of a hardbitten billionaire asset manager in David Cronenberg’s trippy new film Cosmopolis, Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson wanted to move away from the spotlight for a bit.
Having already built a fervent fan base and achieved worldwide fame and fortune with his part as a dreamy vampire in the Twilight films, the 26- year- old British actor wanted to seek out smaller projects so he could quietly hone his craft.
“I wanted to try and do small parts in movies that I thought I could learn something from, just damage control, basically, so I could learn a little bit,” Pattinson said during a stop in Toronto this week to promote Cosmopolis, which opens across Canada today.
But then Pattinson received the script for the Toronto- shot Cosmopolis, a fantastical road odyssey based on the 2003 Don DeLillo capitalism critique novel of the same name.
It stars Pattinson as Manhattan money man Eric Packer, who sits atop a high- tech throne in the back of his stretch limo en route to get a haircut. Along the way he meets antiglobalization protests and chats about his mortality and the global economy with various associates and his new wife ( Toronto native Sarah Gadon).
Kevin Durand of Thunder Bay, Ont., co- stars as Eric’s chief of security while Oscarnominated Paul Giamatti plays one of Eric’s disgruntled former employees who’s out to get him. Other co- stars include Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton, and Emily Hampshire.
Cronenberg wrote the screenplay in an unprecedented six days, changing a few scenes from the book but using much of its poetic literary dialogue word for word. He told his actors to stick to the script and didn’t hold rehearsals.
Not an easy task for Pattinson, who’s in virtually every scene. But he’s now gaining accolades for his performance and it’s given him the confidence he needed to take on the types of roles he wants, he said.
“I’m not so afraid of failure. I’m a little bit more ambitious in my parts that I chose now. I’m doing a movie in Iraq, which is quite ambitious,” said Pattinson, wearing a black ball cap and sucking on a toothpick with a latte at his side, during a round of morning interviews.
“I never really took myself seriously as an actor before ... . Before I did this movie I was fully intending on hiding for a couple of years, but this has really reinvigorated my ideas about acting. And I like being slightly on the fringe as well, rather than trying to get movies that are sort of vehicles.
“So yeah, I’m kind of going more in that direction.”
Cronenberg said he could see himself casting Pattinson again. “You work with people you really feel you’d like to work with them again and I feel that way about Rob, and I felt that way obviously about Viggo [ Mortensen],” said the silverhaired Cronenberg, who’s made several films with Mortensen, including A History of Violence and Eastern Promises.
“And then I started to think, ‘ Wow, Rob and Viggo in the same movie would be terrific,’ because I know they’d get along personally but I also think creatively onscreen it would be fantastic. But I don’t have a project, exactly. We have some possibilities, so we’re talking about it,” added Cronenberg, noting he thinks Pattinson has “tons of potential to do many, many different types of things.”
“It’s possible it’ll never happen, because it’s so hard to get things made, especially anything interesting, and I think that’s sort of where I am — is making movies that are hard to get made.”
Cosmopolis, which had a budget of about $ 20 million, is Cronenberg’s first fully digital feature film, and he said he had his director’s cut done in just two days. “I honestly think it’s like the Bible, this movie, in that there’s a line that addresses everything in your life, if you look for it. It’s very bizarre,” said Cronenberg, 69.
“I found myself texting my wife: ‘ I look for you, Elise.’ At first she thought she had intercepted an affair. I said, ‘ No no, it’s a quote from the movie.’ The lines have incredible resonance, it’s really fantastic that way, and it’s kind of spooky.”
Though the film has some of Cronenberg’s provocative hallmarks, including unabashed sex and gore, he said he wasn’t deliberately trying to attempt the same style of his previous projects. “I just don’t think about my other movies at all, because in terms of what you have to do to make this film and make it work, nothing that you’ve done before actually helps you,” said Cronenberg.