The Daily Beast has an interesting article “The Tao of Werner Herzog “I”m Not Someone Like Madonna” where Werner talks Rob and Queen of the Desert:

“The Nicole Kidman starrer Queen of the Desert, an epic about the life of British archeologist Gertrude Bell, premiered in Berlin and debuts this month at AFI Fest. He cast Robert Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence before fully grasping how huge the Twilight franchise was.

“I only realized that wherever I showed up in Morocco there were screeching teenies,” he smiled. “Pattinson is a very, very smart, very well-educated and intelligent young man. When he says things in the film, they’re always credible. You see you don’t just have a pretty face. It was a pleasure to have him around. A good comrade, as well.”

Critics in Berlin gave a chilly welcome to Queen of the Desert, which also stars James Franco and Damian Lewis as the other men of Bell’s life. Herzog suggests that maybe they missed the point; it’s a rare film of his involving love and romance.

“Some people expected the film to be a biopic. I never wanted it to be a biopic. I always said it’s going to be a film about longing,” he said. “So what? This is a film about longing and her biography is so complex anyway that you need a series of twelve films to get to the bottom of her life span.”

Queen of the Desert is one of two new Herzog films led by women. Salt and Fire, a film Herzog scripted in five days and shot in Bolivia, stars Veronica Ferres, Michael Shannon, and Gael Garcia Bernal.”

I loved that Werner points out that they missed the point of the film.  I saw it on the weekend, I thought it was great and I was totally engrossed.  I don’t want to spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it, but just know that I didn’t think the film focused solely on the romances, but you can’t have her story and not deal with them.  And like Werner says, you can’t squeeze her life into a 2 hour movie in any event.

Click on the link above to read the entire article which is a great read.