GQ UK Ask Who Did it Better ~ Robert Pattinson or Tom Holland?

GQ UK decided to see who went all out between Rob and Tom Holland on their southern accents in The Devil All the Time. Rob pipped out Tom with an overall score of 14 to Tom’s 11 and here’s how they decided Rob’s overall score (click on the link to read the comparisons):

Drawl

Robert Pattinson: 5/5

As an unsavoury, manipulative preacher, Pattinson brings less fire-and-brimstone energy to Teagardin and more of a visit-your-wife-while-you’re-away-at-work vibe. He wears shirts with ruffs down the front, drives a Cadillac and is so generally smarmy that he could dial the drawl up to 100 per cent and it would still be convincing. Which he does – and it is. When he whines, “Goddamnit, boy, I ain’t going to take the blame for no bastard child! It would ruin me, man,” it comes out as a sort of “Goddaymn it bwoay, I ain’t gunna take the blay-um for no bastard chahld! I’d ruin me, mayn.” A wonderful Yosemite Sam impression for a man raised in Barnes.

Bombast

Robert Pattinson: 4/5

Pattinson gets some great bombastic moments, including a brilliantly dumb sermon about fried chicken livers at a church community lunch that begins with him whispering, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and ends with him very dramatically suggesting that he’s, “going to eat these organs because I model myself on the good lord Jesus, whenever he gives me the chance”, selflessly consuming the cheap livers and offering the better meat to his flock. What a showman

Vocabulary

Robert Pattinson: 3/5

Perhaps it’s hard to judge on vocabulary, because Pattinson and Holland can only deliver the lines in the script, after all. But then again, an actor’s delivery can emphasise specific words and Pattinson works very well with what he’s given. He gets lots of very typical preachy lines about righteousness and delusion, which he manages to make sound perverse nonetheless. As the narrator says, “He would never win a fist fight, but he could recite the Book Of Revelation in his sleep.”

Intensity

Robert Pattinson: 2/5

The way Teagardin speaks is actually not very intense. Though he talks a lot, most of what he says is ultimately meaningless or little more than attempts to wheedle his way out of trouble or to get people to do what he wants. Namely, to persuade young women to “worship” with him in private. Words are something he throws at people to try to confuse them, not something he considers carefully.

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In the end, Pattinson just about clinches it with an accent slicker than a greased hog. The Devil All The Time is a stylised film, true to the American Gothic inspiration of the original novel and so he just about gets away with chewing the scenery and having a blast playing up to the charismatic preacher stereotype. As a supporting character, he naturally has a lot more slack to play with before his delivery starts to sound totally, utterly ridiculous.