Robert Pattinson talks to Alissa Wilkinson from Vox

Rob talks to Alissa Wilkinson from Vox. Here’s an extract of her interview but you can read the full transcript HERE.

Alissa Wilkinson
What kind of prep do you have to do to shoot a movie like this?

Robert Pattinson
I was doing a lot of crazy things. Pretty much every scene is a high-intensity psychological breakdown. I stayed in that zone a lot of the time when I was shooting it, a lot of walking around in circles kind of muttering to myself.

Alissa Wilkinson
Do you do anything in particular to put yourself in that brain space?

Robert Pattinson
When I first read the script and was figuring out something to connect to, I was listening to all these different Maine lobster fisherman accents. It sounded like a contorted accent, and you had to contort yourself to get the accent right, like in your face. Then it translated over to your body.

And so to feel like I did when I first read the script, I just kept doing these weird body contortions, which seemed to be the trigger [for me] to feel like this guy. But I guess it was kind of bizarre for people to see me kind of twist myself up before every single scene. A lot of contortions!

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Alissa Wilkinson
Did you at least also get lobster while you were there, to eat?

Robert Pattinson
You’re the only person who’s asked me that. I mean, the lobster there tastes phenomenal. It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted. Also, I didn’t realize you’re supposed to cook lobster in … this sounds so disgusting, but you have to cook it in the saltwater that it came from. It tastes way nicer. I feel like I’m revealing that I’m like a cannibal, but it was especially delicious, even though it came with a lot of shame.

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Alissa Wilkinson
How does this role fit into the kind of roles you like to play? You’ve worked with a lot of directors who favor a very stylized kind of movie.

Robert Pattinson
Yeah. I loved The Witch. I do like working with people who’ve got an extremely individual style, because then you can’t rely on anything you’ve relied upon before in different performances. It helps you grow. So I definitely like these iconoclastic directors.

There’s also so much detail in Robert [Eggers]’s work. He’ll take these massive punts on a movie. There’s so much density to the films he’s made. The writing in this, it seemed like there was just so much there that it was really, really inspiring. Then when you add to that writing ability, the production design ability … It’s one of the most beautiful sets that I’ve ever seen. You open up any drawer, it’s filled with cutlery that’s from the Lighthouse Department in 1890 or whatever.

He’s such a stickler for detail. He would be just discussing period underwear. He was sort of telling me, “Which batch of the underwear do you like the most? Which do you think you would wear?” and I’m like, “What are you talking about? No one’s even going to see this, and also, I cannot tell the difference.”

It’s lovely working with somebody like that, because it just gives you so much material to work with, and it’s transportive.