We’ve posted some interviews with David Michôd and Guy Pearce talking about Robert Pattinson and The Rover; here are few more
David Michôd
First Showing (starts at 13:10)
Read more interviews after the jump!
Getting to the casting, Guy Pearce is just so fantastic in this movie. Every glance he has, he conveys so much. I’m curious since Robert Pattinson is such a great counterpart to that. It definitely feels like in the last few years he’s trying to segue into more films like this. When you met him and what he brought to the table, how much was on the page versus the many nuances he brings to his character? What was the process like of casting him?
One of the things I liked about Rob, right from the outset — other than meeting him and just finding him beguiling and fascinating — was that when he came to test for me, he came both with a really beautifully considered and specific reading of the character, but also a full understanding that on the page, the character can be played a hundred different ways. So straight away that said to me that I had in him a collaborator who would help me find the character. I talk about the fact that I kind of tested him over two days for something close to four hours, but I sort of knew that I wanted him in the first five minutes. The other three hours and fifty minutes were him and I exploring the character. He had a lot to contribute on that front.
When he came to Australia about two weeks before we started shooting we had lots of conversation about things that were seemingly cosmetic. Hair cuts and wardrobes say a lot about the character and the character’s backstory and the character’s sense of the world and he had lots of things to say on that front. He was the one who initially agitated to have his monkey haircut. That rationale for it, in a way, was that this was the point of his character. Unlike Guy, this is a kid who still feels like there’s something out there for him and his monkey haircut is his delusional way of styling himself on the off chance that there’s a kind of pretty girl in the next town that he might fall in love with.(…)
I loved the selection of the Keri Hilson song. It starts as almost a fun idiosyncratic kind of way and then you cut right to Pattinson’s character and it’s sad because it’s part of a life his character will never come back to. Can you talk about using that song and you obviously knew about it beforehand because he sings it in the movie.
Yeah, the motivation there is not dissimilar to the one I was describing before with regard to his haircut. It’s just a reminder at a particularly crucial point in the movie that this kid is a kid who, unlike Guy’s character, still weirdly has a sense of the world being a place that is still to be explored, that he still has music that he likes. The ways in which those sorts kind of cultural interests feed into your whole sense of your place in the world and perhaps the girls he might meet, all of which is stuff for Guy’s character has just entirely evaporated.
Pattinson’s character, on the other hand, he describes more as “a blank canvas”.
“For one reason or another, I didn’t have a particular actor in my head as I was writing it, and so then I got to go through that exhilarating process of seeing people bring it to life [in auditions]… Rob was the person who came in with a version of the character that was beautifully in tune with what I had always imagined. It was instantly clear to me that he was a really good actor, but it was also clear that he had a really beautiful understanding of the character’s vulnerabilities and aspirations.”
“It’s always nerve-wracking when you’re casting,” Michôd continues, “because this is where the movie lives and dies. It’s kind of a cliché to say that 80 percent of a director’s work is in casting, but it’s kind of true. If you cast the movie wrong, it can be very difficult to salvage.”
This ‘big fruity circle’ wasn’t totally useless, however. It was during the period of incessant LA meetings that Michôd met his future ‘Rey’ – Robert Pattinson.
“In amongst those 40,000 meetings I had after Animal Kingdom, a number of them were with actors, which happens a lot in Hollywood, you just have these general meetings,” Michôd explains. “And one of them was with Rob. I hadn’t seen the Twilight films and I still haven’t, but someone said to me, ‘you should go meet him, he’s really interesting.'”
“I liked him a lot. I liked his energy, I liked his face. He had an interesting face! I didn’t know anything about him. I always thought he was kind of like this super chiselled male model guy and then I found myself sitting next to him and looking at his face and saying, ‘Wow, your face is actually really interesting. I like your face.’
“He was also really smart and very well-read, he was very familiar with everything that I and my friends in Sydney had been doing and making.”
But it was Pattinson’s later audition for the role – a character about as far away from Twilight’s brooding vampire poster boy Edward Cullen as you can imagine – that really blew Michôd away.
“It was just exhilarating,” he says. “We were auditioning really great people. They were all good. We didn’t see any bad tests but Rob was just the one who came in and instantly made me feel like I could see half of the movie now.”
(…)
“One of the magical things about making a film out in the desert is that it’s a big school camp. We were all together, everywhere, all the time,” muses Michôd. “That evolving relationship between Guy and Rob was not just a professional one. In our regular working day it was also one that would always spill over into evenings. Being so isolated out there, it became very easy for all of us to embrace the madness of the world of the movie. Especially when we ended up in Marree, way up north, eight hours north of Adelaide. None of us had phone reception for three weeks. None of us had phones, we only had very limited internet. We were in this tiny town in the middle of the desert and all we had was each other. It was both incredibly intimate and rewarding and totally crazy making it at the same time.”
Collider (starts at 10:05) – click on the screencap to watch the interview
Other interviews we posted before: DP/30 | MTV | Twitch | IndieWire
Guy Pearce
IGN: Your character also has a unique relationship with Robert Pattinson’s character Rey. What were your initial thoughts on that dynamic, even before you met with Robert, just actually reading it on the page?
Pearce: Well, I can’t remember, funnily enough, to be honest. I really can’t remember. Obviously their relationship really developed once I saw Rob’s work and the work on this film, once I saw what he was doing. We had some rehearsal beforehand and stuff. But I don’t remember what I thought about that dynamic beforehand, and I think it was probably because I was so fixated on trying to understand my character. I think, to be honest, I probably didn’t really understand the slow development of empathy with their relationship until we actually started shooting. Because it’s very clear from the outset, I say to him, “I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you die. I’m just using you to get to your brother. Simple as that.” I knew there was going to be more to that, and we talked about the fact that that had to develop into something else over the course of the film. But I don’t feel like I got a handle of that until we really started shooting. Once I saw what Rob was doing — and he’s so vulnerable, as you see in the film — there’s a lovely naiveté to him in the film. Like a puppy-dog, he wants to keep following me. So it just really developed into an interesting relationship, I think.IGN: Was it kind of interesting for you, just as an observer, to see him play a character like that, that’s so different from what we’re used to seeing?
Pearce: Well, the only thing I’d seen him do was Water for Elephants. I’ve certainly seen him in lots of interviews and in clips of Twilight, so I’ve seen lots of bits and pieces, but the only full film I’d seen was Water for Elephants. I just went, “Wow, he’s a movie star. Amazing.” So of course it was fascinating for me to see him do this — and to do it so well, because it’s hard to do that stuff and pull it off; you know, to play anxiety and play that “trying to find your power.” It’s hard to do that s***, and do it well, I reckon.
Other interviews: Total Film| Den of Geek
David Michôd and Guy Pearce
Q: David – what drew you to Rob for this project? As a longtime fan of his I’ve felt like all he ever needed was a great director to guide him and show what he’s truly capable of. Where you surprised he had it in him? Obviously you knew he could be good, but were you expecting him to be THAT good?
David: really simple – i didn’t know much about him before he came in and did a beautiful audition for me. it wasn’t surprising. it was just really impressive and exhilarating because i could see the movie coming alive.Q: David – you said in an interview that you did a few takes of Rob singing a southern, gospel tune he made up in place of Pretty Girl Rock. Would that be something that could show up as DVD special features?
David: one day it’ll rear its little head, i’m sure…Q: I have read great reviews of this movie both from the Cannes showing as well as in the LA Times. I am a big fan of both of you in the movie Animal Kingdom.
Question for both of you one of the big points of interest was the casting of Robert Pattinson in what would definitely be considered an atypical role.
For David how did that casting take place and for Guy how was it like working with a teen idol in the hot Australian desert?
Guy: It was great watching Rob deal with the flies, whilst not having to deal with ANY paparazzi!Q: Guy – what scenes in The Rover stands out as one of your favorites and one of the more challenging scenes to shoot?
Guy: One of my favorite would be when Rob (Rey) confronts his brother played by Scoot McNairy towards the end of the film. I can’t think of what was the most challenging.
Other interview: HuffPost Live
Via RPLife
Thinking of Rob 
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