Robert Pattinson will play Colonel Joll in Waiting for the Barbarians

Well that didn’t take long.  IMDbPro updated overnight and Waiting for the Barbarians has been added to Rob’s IMDb page.  It’s under “projects in development and its status is still “optioned” Rob’s character name is “Colonel Joll”.  Waiting for the book to arrive – so can’t wait to start reading it over Christmas.

The character of Colonel Joll is described at LitCharts as follows (ps.  don’t read if you want to remain spoiler free)

A colonel in the Empire’s army, Joll visits the Empire’s frontier settlements in order to interrogate any barbarians who have been taken prisoner, hoping to gain information about the barbarians’ raiding plans. Joll—commandeering and overbearing in his authority, and brutal and apathetic in his torture tactics—embodies the opposite of the magistrate’s character. Joll is fully convinced that the barbarians are plotting to attack and undermine the Empire, and he’s willing to use any means necessary in order to acquire information about it. But Joll is so blindly and unquestioningly invested in his military campaign that he seems to only seek ‘truth’ from his torture victims that confirms his suspicions. Though he claims, in conversation with the magistrate, to be an expert in distinguishing what’s true from false, purporting to be able to perceive the ‘tone of truth’ in his interrogation of victims, Joll seems to apply pain to his victims in such a way that they are forced to lie and tell him whatever he wants to hear. Uninterested in the real truth of the nomadic people, Joll is intoxicated by his own authority, and caught up in his unfounded evaluation of them as debase and barbaric. His blindness to the truth and horrifying inscrutability is also symbolized by his use ofsunglasses.

More info on our film page HERE