Antonio Campos Talks Robert Pattinson and Preston Teagardin with Esquire

Esquire spoke to Antonio Campos about The Devil All the Time and this is what he had to say about Rob and his performance:

Reverend Teagardin is a magnetic character who really commands your attention. What were some of Robert Pattinson’s inspirations for that role?

We looked at a lot of different YouTube videos of evangelical preachers and also the pop-stars of the time, like listening to interviews with Elvis and hearing the way he would talk. Then Rob’s own madness; he had his own process and was on his own consuming a lot of different references. I didn’t really hear the accent until we started to shoot, he really showed up in character and showed me Teagardin for the first time.

Did he stay in part throughout the filming process?

He would let it go and come back, he’s very fluid like that. I would say: “Don’t be scared to go as far as you want to go, throw it all out there and let’s see where it goes”. And sometimes he’d go so far he’d make himself laugh and even in those takes we might get something brilliant, but it was like he would kind of zero in and be in it. The performance is almost closer to a possession than it is a performance.