Vogue UK focuses on 10 Defining Roles from Robert Pattinson

Vogue UK has run an editorial piece entitled “10 Defining Robert Pattinson Roles to Devour” – they focus on the following films “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, “The Twilight Saga”, “Cosmopolis”, “The Rover”, “Maps to the Stars”, “The Childhood of a Leader”, “The Lost City of Z”, “Good Time”, “High Life” and “The Lighthouse” claiming they feature Rob’s best performances. I’m not sure why they didn’t add “Damsel” or “The King”, since in my opinion, they show Rob’s comedic capabilities and are definitely memorable. In any event, below is an extract from the article:

There are few actors working today who are as versatile as Robert Pattinson. The 34-year-old Londoner first made a splash at the age of 19, when he caused a generation of Harry Potter fans to swoon at his chivalrous, clean-cut portrayal of Cedric Diggory in the fourth instalment of the series. Then came Twilight, the vampire saga which became a cultural phenomenon, grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide and secured the actor an obsessive global following.

Instead of parlaying his newfound fame into another blockbuster franchise, Pattinson confounded his critics and grew into a mainstay of auteur cinema. He played British officer TE Lawrence in Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert (2015), an ambitious photographer in Anton Corbijn’s Life (2015), a street hustler in the Safdie brothers’ explosive crime drama Good Time (2017), a bumbling pioneer in the Zellner brothers’ feminist western Damsel (2018) and, most recently, an officer in Ciro Guerra’s JM Coetzee adaptation Waiting for the Barbarians (2019).

Considering his off-beat oeuvre, the industry was stunned once again when it was announced in May 2019 that Pattinson would be transforming into the caped crusader for Matt Reeves’ hotly anticipated reboot The Batman. Could this spell a permanent return to the mainstream? Perhaps his next role, in Christopher Nolan’s big-budget time-bending thriller Tenet, will provide the perfect balance between arthouse credibility and commercial clout. Ahead of its scheduled release in cinemas on 12 August, we revisit Pattinson’s 10 most memorable performances to date.

Robert Pattinson and Cosmopolis proves an early indication of his talent

Phillipa Snow from New Statesmen discusses Rob and Cosmopolis in today’s world: “The dystopian thriller offers both the soothing image of a billionaire capitalist brought to heel by riots, and one of the earliest indications of Robert Pattinson’s talent.” Below is an extract from the article:

When Cosmopolis first screened in 2012, the movie’s buzz centred around the fact that Robert Pattinson – lately of the blockbuster teen romance series Twilight – would be playing Eric Packer, who in Don DeLillo’s original novel utters the immortal line, “I want to bottle-fuck you slowly with my sunglasses on.” Pattinson was known primarily for being pretty, and if he was known for much else it was for exasperated interviews about the films that made him famous. “I want to do a movie with [Jean-Luc] Godard so badly,” he told the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles a few months after the release of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, a declaration that led to some merriment from those who saw themselves as being above the kind of culture loved by adolescent girls. I remember seeing Cosmopolis in 2012, and thinking that his casting was a masterstroke – an empty vessel, as gorgeously inexpressive as a statue, to be filled with DeLillo and Cronenberg’s ideas about the ruling class.

When viewed in 2020, Cosmopolis is exhilarating in two ways. The first is that it offers up the soothing image of a billionaire capitalist brought to heel by riots. The second is that Pattinson’s work as Packer, thorough enough that it looks like natural blankness, has since turned out to be one of the earliest indications of his talent.

At present, Robert Pattinson is utterly believable as someone who might work with Godard; he is no longer a heart-throb, but an unpredictable star of the arthouse. Watch him talking about vomiting on himself while masturbating for The Lighthouse, or extolling the delights of sexual spitting, or inventing a disturbing childhood memory about witnessing a clown’s death at a circus (he later admitted the anecdote, told on the Today Show, was fabricated) and the general impression is not of a gorgeous, inexpressive statue, but of a man who at any moment might reveal himself to be an actual lunatic. As is true of Joaquin Phoenix, there is something faintly feral in his best performances – a loss of sense, of sanity, of dignity. He is still beautiful, but unsettlingly so, age hollowing what were already unreal cheekbones into caverns. (In another 20 years, he may look like his co-star in The Lighthouse, Willem Dafoe.) What he has done is let a fine machine – his bankable image as a boring cutie meant for kids – degrade in public. It might be a scandal if he had not proven quite so popular with, among others, directors such as Claire Denis, the Safdie brothers, Robert Eggers and James Gray. It might be scandalous if he were not so good.

Click on link above to read full article.

Claire Denis talks Robert Pattinson

Claire Denis presented a three-hour masterclass last Wednesday (29 April 2020) as part of the Vision du Réel film festival. The festival also honored her with the “Maître du Réel” and Claire was happy to provide some insights into her career where she mentioned both Rob and Juliette Binoche. The masterclass will be made available with English subtitles at the festivals site. But for now, here are two takes on what drew Claire to Rob:

From Variety:

There’s something hidden in him. I think that’s why he’s so strong. He’s not at all naturalistic — he has this plastic beauty behind which hides something mysterious. That’s very powerful in cinema.

From Cinecetta News (Italy)

The question of reality also manifests itself in your relationship with the actors, like when you talk about Robert Pattinson , which you directed in High Life : “I saw it in Twilight and Cosmopolis , and it struck me because it has a hidden side, which is also seen in Good Time . He is not a naturalist actor, there is always something under it, and that is why it works in all those films “. 

Robert Pattinson as Eric Michael Packer in #Cosmopolis

UPDATED: 6 April 2020

Bringing this forward as we’re celebrating Rob’s performance in Cosmopolis as our Movie Monday on Twitter and Instagram today. I posted this back in August 2018 – so it’s actually almost 8 years since we were blessed with this great performance.

It’s hard to believe that Cosmopolis came out 6 years ago, but I’m glad it did and it can certainly be considered the precursor for so many brilliant performances from Rob since that time.  It should be no surprise then that I thought we should kickstart the week by celebrating Rob’s performance in this film.  Thank you Mr Cronenberg for believing in Rob and helping to unlock the potential we all knew was there.  Say hello to Eric Michael Packer …

MOVIE MONDAY: Behind the Scenes with Robert Pattinson | #EricMichaelPacker #Cosmopolis

Caitlin Cronenberg shared a few behind the scenes photos today of Rob on the set of Cosmopolis with her dad – David Cronenberg. They aren’t new, but it’s great inspiration for our Movie Monday. So here are the pics, plus a few more of Rob on the set of Cosmopolis. You can check out all the ones we have in our Gallery

Robert Pattinson talks The Batman, The Lighthouse and his movies post Twilight

Clark Collis from Entertainment Weekly talks to Rob about The Lighthouse, his movie choices and directors post Twilight and The Batman. The whole interview is great, but Rob talking why he was interested in The Batman starts at 14.48. Of course the fact that Jack Nicholson was involved in that franchise would pique his interests. He also talks about finding out about The Batman on his first day on the #Tenet set and talking to Christopher Nolan.

I am unable to embed so click on the photo of Rob below to watch the full 18 min+ interview or head on over to MSN

Updated with YouTube