Thinking of Rob   It's all about Robert Pattinson

From DailyMail

Amidst the flashing cameras, fans and buzz of The Rover’s Australian premiere, its star Robert Pattinson was really just missing the Outback.

Pattinson, his co-star Guy Pearce and director David Michod walked the red carpet in Sydney on Saturday night for Michod’s much-anticipated follow-up to Animal Kingdom, which is screening as part of Sydney Film Festival.

Hundreds of fans waited along the street for the Twilight star, some who had been there since early that morning.

The anticipation seemed to be too much for one, who climbed over the barrier for a closer look, before realising it probably wasn’t a great idea to stand in the middle of three lanes of CBD street traffic.

When the stars turned up, one lane outside the State Theatre was blocked off to allow Pattinson and Pearce to meet and take photographs with the crowd. Cars crawled past as people, realising what the fuss was about, pressed against windows with their phones trying to get a snap.

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Pearce says the turn-out wasn’t shocking because Pattinson “deserves it totally“.

“It’s pretty full on though,” he says. “I’m glad it doesn’t happen to me all the time.”

Pearce would have had a taste of this kind of hysteria over the years, particularly on Neighbours, but admits “it was never quite this mad”.

Director David Michod knew when Pattinson signed onto star in The Rover that this kind of fanbase existed, but he didn’t really know what it would feel like to be around it.

“With Rob it’s Beatlemania,” he says.

“But it’s been one of the great, sort of most rewarding things for me about this whole experience is realising that the guy who’s at the centre of this bizarre bubble is actually a really wonderful gentle, humble, interesting, funny human being.”

The Rover was filmed over seven weeks in remote South Australia. And for Pattinson, being in the Outback allowed him to feel a bit more free.

“I really miss the Outback, I loved it out there,” he says, adding he will also miss Australians in general.

In The Rover, Pattinson plays Rey, a young, simple Southern American who finds himself alone and forced to help Pearce’s Eric – a cold, angry loner – find the gang who stole his car. Pattinson’s performance, filled with tics and vulnerability, has been called “career re-defining” and for Pearce, seeing him play Rey was “utterly heartbreaking”.

“In fact, I don’t think I worked on the first day and on the second day I went out and was watching Rob do some stuff and I was really quite taken by what he was doing,” he says.

“I’m embarrassing him by saying this right now, but I just found it a really extraordinary, really beautiful performance.”

With his Twilight days truly behind him Robert Pattinson is shaping up as an Oscar favourite after his performance in Australian film The Rover.
His co-star Guy Pearce has said he was ‘incredibly moved’ by the 28-year-old British actor’s portrayal, while serious Academy Awards buzz brews.

‘It’s amazing… it was utterly heartbreaking,’ Pearce, 46, said on the red carpet at The Rover’s Sydney Film Festival premiere on Saturday night.

‘In fact, I didn’t work on the first day but on the second day (of The Rover) I went out and was watching Rob do some stuff and I was really quite taken by what he was doing.

‘I’m embarrassing him by saying this right now, but it was quite extraordinary.’
The veteran Australian actor called Pattinson’s performance as young thief, Rey, in the dystopian thriller ‘really beautiful’ and the critics seem to agree.

The Rover – which is released in cinemas later this month – had its world premiere at the Cannes film festival in May, with Variety calling it a ‘career-redefining performance’.