Thinking of Rob   It's all about Robert Pattinson

The Rover UK junket roundtable interview with Robert Pattinson, Guy Pearce and David Michôd + NEW pics

Transcript from The Hollywood News

Having trudged down a lengthy, rubble-strewn path in the baking heat to the train station, it’s safe to say I was in theright frame of mind to talk about THE ROVER. Director David Michôd and stars Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson were in attendance at a thankfully opulent and stress-free location for a quick chat with the world’s press. Laid-back, often amusing and crucially surrounded by free water, they gave us an insight into the making of the most intense Australian road movie since MAD MAX.

(Our questions/interjections are marked ‘THN’)

Guy Pearce: What are you guys doing in here? (Laughter)

Robert Pattinson: (Putting his shades on the table) Can’t wait to get to a level where I can wear sunglasses…

Journalist: During the day?

RP: During press junkets. (Laughter)

David Michôd: If I ever have a film at Cannes again I’m gonna do that, you get the big photocall and they straight away tell you to…

GP: Take your glasses off.

DM: Take your sunglasses off… The flashes are so intense, so next time if I ever have another film playing Cannes I’m going to be that wanker who wears the sunglasses. (Laughter)

Read more after the jump

David, after ANIMAL KINGDOM and THE ROVER, when are we going to see you do a romcom? You keep going to dark places.

DM: Yeah. I don’t know why. When I go to the movies I like to have powerful experiences, and for some reason that darkness and menace and sadness is, for me, a powerful experience. Those are the moments, as strange as it sounds, where I get most exhilarated when I’m in an edit room…That’s when I feel my spine tingling. Having said that I would love to have the experience of sitting in the audience watching a movie I’d made that was making people laugh hysterically. I don’t know whether I’m capable but I’d love to give it a try. Having said that…people keep thinking I’m being facetious when I say that I think THE ROVER is really funny. Everything that Rob does especially, in the face of Guy’s relentless abuse…

THN: I should say, in the screening I was at, there was one laugh, and it was when the little guy got shot. (Laughter)

Journalist: I thought your song in the car was really funny Rob.

RP: No…

Journalist: How was that?

RP: I thought it was so funny in the script.

DM: Did it feel funny when you were doing it?

RP: No. I mean, actually…I was trying to telegraph the next scene. I thought it was really brave having that in the script. It was actually a different song first of all, it was The Pussycat Dolls first of all.

David, did you pick that (Pretty Girl Rock by Keri Hilson) because it stuck out so much?

DM: I wanted there to be at that moment, in the film, a particularly dark juncture for Rob’s character, for there to be a moment that reminded the audience of the fact that his character was just a kid who in different circumstances would probably just be listening to music and thinking about girls. It felt very important to me that you just have that one moment. I can also feel it in the movie, just a moment of levity, because the movie can be a little bit…(chuckles) relentlessly grim.

Rob, how did you find working in the Aussie wilderness? Bit of a culture shock?

RP: Kind of. There wasn’t really anyone out there…

DM: There’s no culture…

RP: There was a pub. With an English person working in there. It was incredibly peaceful. You realize the value of your anonymity again and how priceless it is. But also an unusual place as well. A mysticism to the area. It’s not like just being out in nothingness, there’s an intensity to it as well.

DM: It’s corny but it feels weirdly, strangely spiritual. Just because you are surrounded by vast nothingness…And it’s fun being out there too. When you’re shooting in the city you leave work, you have to have a shower because you’ve probably got a dinner to go to. Being out there it was fun not caring about how filthy you were…about what clothes you were wearing.

GP: We were all in the same boat.

THN: Guy, on the subject of clothes, the look of your character is very ‘interesting’. There are certain scenes where you look like an exhumed corpse. How did the look of Eric come together and did you have much input into his overall image?

GP: Well, I mean David had pretty clear ideas about what he wanted, but we also then would discuss…I think the description of the clothes was there in the…To a degree wasn’t it…?

DM: Shirts, shorts and sneakers.

GP: I was excited about just getting to wear one costume for the entire shoot. There’s nothing worse than having to do a quick change.

THN: Did they mess you up a bit before you went on camera, or you just basically went…? (Guy indicates he looks like that normally).

GP: There was a lot of discussions about our haircuts and we tried something, and then David would go “Look it’s nearly, but not right”. I’m just trying to remember the process in the studio in Adelaide. At one point David’s saying: “I really want it to look like you found a blunt pair of old scissors and you just cut it yourself”. So I found a pair of old scissors and cut it myself. I think I might have been drunk.

THN: Well it was very effective.

GP: Absolutely. And you’ve got to take that leap sometimes, to really go to where…you sort of have these ideas about what you think it could be, and maybe it’s this and maybe it’s that, and you realize you’re still operating within some sort of conformity. And eventually you have to go “No, fuck it”, and hope people don’t freak out the next day when you go to work. We did laugh wondering whether people would take on our looks.

Was the atmosphere hushed between takes or was there levity?

GP: It depended what we were doing, but we had fun. We had a good laugh together on set pretty much. I mean, if we were doing a heavy, heavy scene it wasn’t really appropriate to ruin the mood. (Rob mimes interrupting Guy in the middle of a scene) “I’m just killing someone, hang on a second…”

There wasn’t a lot of background about your characters. Did you guys sit down and talk about it?

RP: I’ve suddenly remembered…Do you remember that conversation we had where I wanted to have the tops of his ears snipped off? (Laughs) I’d read this thing about thieves out in the Wild West…And I thought that would be such a great little bit.

GP: What, to be more aerodynamic?

RP: No, it was a punishment.

GP: Oh I see.

Robert, was there anything specific you had to do to get into character?

RP: There was one thing…I only found out later, I didn’t really realize I was doing it, but all the guns were controlled by an armourer, who was obviously very serious about guns, and he got so pissed off when I started playing with the guns…and I realized that was kind of what was getting me into character, annoying the armourer (Laughs).

THE ROVER is released in UK cinemas on August 15th.

Transcript from Live for Films

Out in the UK on the 15th of August, The Rover stars Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson. Its based on a story by Joel Edgerton, and written and directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom). You can read my review of the film here.

It’s an excellent film, and Pearce and Pattinson are perfect. In a post-financial collapse Australia, Pearce’s Eric is just trying to survive. But, when a gang nick his car he gives unrelenting chase, letting nothing and nobody get between him and his ride.

Along the way he teams up with Pattinson’s Rey. Rey is the brother of one of the car thieves and wants to track down his big bro and find out why he left him for dead on their last job. It’s a tough, dusty thriller with a great central duo of performances and masterful writing and direction.
Pearce, Pattinson and Michôd were all in town to promote the release and, because we’re the best film blog in the UK, I got to rep us at the film’s junket in the posh Corinthia Hotel.

A “round table” interview can suck. Basically, you, the talent and some other journos (anywhere from two to ten) sit around a table (see, clever name) and take turns asking questions.

The reason it can sometimes suck is if the other journos are evil. I’ve done a round table with total bastards who will do anything to stop you getting a word in edge ways. Like I said – sucks.

Luckily, I was in a gang that include the lovely Stuart from Screenjabber, and the equally lovely Craig from The Establishing Shot – so no probs there. Also, the talent, Pearce, Pattinson and Michôd, were great fun. So, yeah, it was brilliant.
Michôd is a total dude and I would love to go and get hammered with him. Guy Pearce was the politest, coolest guy/Guy ever – joking about people’s cameras and responding animatedly and excitedly to all our queries. And Pattinson… Fuck. I’ll level with you. I’ve now got a total man crush on Robert Pattinson. He’d start answering a question brightly, before tailing off and disappearing back inside himself. I just wanted to take him home, feed him pizza, hold him close and tell him that everything is going to be OK.

[Pearce, Pattinson and Michôd enter. Everyone says hello and Pearce starts messing around with the cameras on the table in front of him. Michôd starts talking straight away, while Rob tousles his hair and chooses between still and sparkling water.]

David Michôd: I can’t wait to get to a level where I can where sunglasses…

Guy Pearce: During the day?

David Michôd: During the day! If I ever have a film at Cannes again, I’m gonna do it. You get the photo call and they straight away tell you to take your sunglasses off, and then all the photos of me – I’m doing this [exaggerated squinting]. Next time… I’m gonna be that wanker that wears the sunglasses.

After Animal Kingdom and The Rover, when are we going to see you do something light, like a romcom?

David Michôd: Yeah… When I go to the movies I like to have powerful experiences. For some reason, that darkness and menace and sadness is, for me, a powerful experience. When it’s dark and powerful, that’s when I feel my spine tingling. Having said that… I would love to have the experience of sitting in an audience watching a movie I’d made that was making people laugh!

Robert Pattinson: But people kept saying (about The Rover) yesterday: “it’s a comedy!”

David Michôd: I think The Rover is really funny. Everything Rob does, in the face of Guy’s abuse, is funny!

Live for Films: I thought the song you sing along to in the car was a great, funny moment, Rob. How was that for you?

Robert Pattinson: Yeahhh… I thought that was really brave having that in the script. It was actually a different song in the script. It was The Pussycat Dolls first of all! But yeah, when we found the Keri Wilson song it was… I’d actually never heard it before – I thought it was written for the movie!

Live for Films: What made you pick that particular song, David?

David Michôd: I wanted there to be, in that moment in the film, a particularly dark juncture for Rob’s character. For there to be a moment that reminded the audience of the fact that his character was just a kid, who in different circumstances, would just be listening to music and thinking about girls and… It felt very important to me that you have that one moment of that, and also, you can feel it in the movie – just that moment of levity as well. Because the movie can be a little bit… relentlessly… grim, without those moments of levity.

David, can you tell us about your writing process?

David Michôd: Animal Kingdom took a long time to write, but that was because I was teaching myself to write over those ten years. I started writing it straight out of film school. The first draft of it bears absolutely no resemblance to the finished film at all. There isn’t a single scene, or single line of dialogue, that is still in the movie.

Guy Pearce: It’d be interesting to go and make that original script. With all of us playing different roles!

David Michôd: I’m so glad that I wasn’t a film school wunderkind, because then maybe someone would have thrown money at me to go and make that first draft, and it would have been a disaster! I kept restarting and every time I felt like I was a better writer than the guy who had written the previous draft, so there was no point in me polishing the turd – I should just throw it all out and start again. When I’m left to my own devices, writing is slow. But when I collaborate with people, like Joel (Edgerton), I speeds that process up. Problems that might take me three weeks to solve if I’m by myself, take fifteen minutes to sort when I’m with another person. Also, if you’re writing with someone else, there’s another person waiting for you to say something! If you’re own, you’ll write five words and be like “Phew! I need a break!”

Rob, how did you find working in the Aussie wilderness? Was it a bit of a culture shock?

Robert Pattinson: Errrr… Kind of… I mean, there were… there wasn’t really anyone out there. There wasn’t any culture, just one pub, with an English person running it!

Was it nice to get away from all the hysteria and cameras – that side of things?

Robert Pattinson: Err, yeah. Definitely. We just kind of… it was incredibly peaceful. Just sort of… you really realise the value of your anonymity again, and how kind of priceless it is. But, yeah. Also it was kind of an unusual place as well, because there’s a mysticism to the area. It’s not just being out in nothingness – there’s an intensity to it as well. Yeah, it was really fun being out there.

David Michôd: It’s corny, but it feels weirdly spiritual being out there because the vast nothingness is…

Robert Pattinson: Like savage.

David Michôd: When you’re working in the city, you’ll work and go home and have a shower if you’ve got a dinner to go to. Being out there, it was fun not caring about any of that. Not caring about how filthy you are. Not caring about what clothes you were wearing.

Guy Pearce: Yeah. I never get to wear shorts in normal life! [everyone laughs]

Guy, on the subject of your look in the film, how did that come together, and did you have much input into your image?

Guy Pearce: David had pretty clear ideas about what he wanted. I think the description of the clothes was there… in the script… to a degree, wasn’t it?

David Michôd: Well, yeah. Shirt, shorts and sneakers! [everyone laughs]

Guy Pearce: I was excited about getting to wear just one costume the whole time! [everyone laughs]

Was there much prep before you went on camera, did they have to mess you up a bit, or were you just ready to go?

Guy Pearce: You think I just look like that?! [everyone laughs] I remember there being a lot of discussion about our haircuts. At some point, I remember David saying “I just want it to look like you found an old, blunt pair of scissors, and you just cut it yourself!” So I found a pair of old scissors [everyone laughs]. I think I might have been drunk [everyone laughs]. You’ve gotta take that leap sometimes. Sometimes you just have to say “Fuck it. Do it.” And hope people don’t freak out the next day when you go back to work! [everyone laughs]

Was the atmosphere like while you were filming?

Guy Pearce: It depended what you were doing. We had fun, but if we were doing a heavy, heavy scene and it wasn’t appropriate, you couldn’t be like…

Robert Pattinson: Hey, hey, hey, hey! [Rob starts pretending to finger jab Guy’s ribs to put him off]

Guy Pearce: Hang on! Let me just shoot these guys!

What about your character’s look, Rob? Tell us about that.

Robert Pattinson: I suddenly remembered, that I’d been calling you (David) up since the audition process, because I wanted my character to have had the tops of his ears cut off. I’d read this thing about thieves – in the wild west – how they’d have the tops of their ears snipped off.

Guy Pearce: For what? To be more aerodynamic? [everyone laughs]

Robert Pattinson: No! As a punishment! If you were a thief. Now, I’m like thank God you (David) didn’t like that, or I’d have had to always wear these prosthetic ears!

Rob, was there anything specific you did to get into character?

Robert Pattinson: Umm… no, yeah. Well, there was this one thing. I only just found out, I didn’t really realise I was doing it, but there was this… All the gun’s were controlled by this armourer – who’s obviously very serious about guns – and he’d get so pissed off because I would always play with the guns! I didn’t realise, but that was me getting into character: annoying the armourer! [everyone laughs]

Guy Pearce: [doing Rob’s voice] I’m sorry, I have to do this. I’m an actor.

Robert Pattinson: But that was my character – he’d be constantly being told off. I’d keep clicking the hammer and breaking it, and could see him in the corner getting so angry with me. That was how I got into character – by irritating people!

Guy, how was it for you to work on an Australian film again?

Guy Pearce: Fantastic. Obviously. Because I got to work with David again. Someone said to me “Oh, it must be great working at home again?” and I said “Well, I live in LA, not the south Aussie outback!” [everyone laughs] So it was quite a schlep to get home! There are certain rhythms that I only get into when I’m playing Australian characters. But this is an extreme character, not your average, everyday Aussie!

David Michôd: Like you can wear it a little bit. Like it’s a comfortable jacket or something.

Live for Films: The ending is pretty devastating, Guy. What was you reaction to it when you first read the script?

Guy Pearce: I really struggled, primarily, with who this guy was. So I thought the ending was fantastic, but then I had to go back through the whole thing, looking for who this guy was – that drove everything for me. I thought it was the most beautiful idea that you’re sent on this particular journey for a reason that you don’t get to understand right until the very end. That it’s something so personal, and so representative of various elements of who we are. That that (the thing at the end that I’m not spoiling) was so important to this guy said so much about who this guy was. So I thought it was a genuinely suRobert Pattinsonrising and beautifully sad… I don’t want to call it a “twist”, it’s not a twist, but a piece of the puzzle. So I was really taken with it.

And then our time was up and we were all really sad that our time with those guys was over.

Don’t forget. The Rover. Is excellent. Is out on the 15th.

Huge thanks to Alex from Entertainment One UK for hooking us up, and huger still thanks to Guy, Rob and David for being so cool, charming and accommodating.

The Establishing Shot

David can you tell us a little bit about your writing process, Animal Kingdom took almost a decade to script and with The Rover you initially went in one direction kind of took a sharp turn to somewhere else. I was hoping to explore how you get it all out of your head onto screen – as well as how you collaborate with people particularly Joel Edgerton.

David Michôd: Animal Kingdom took a long time to write but largely because I was teaching myself to write over those 10 years. I started writing it straight out of film school. The first draft bears absolutely no resemblance to the finished film at all, there isn’t a single scene or line of dialogue that is still in the movie and I started it from scratch about 4 or 5 times.

Guy Pearce: It would be interesting to make that original script, with all of us playing different roles.

David Michôd: Oh Wow! I’m glad that I wasn’t like a film school wunderkind because then maybe someone would have thrown money at me to make that first draft. It would have been a disaster. I started it from scratch a few times because I could just feel in my bones that I was a better writer than the guy who had written the previous draft and there was no point to me polishing the turd. I just threw it out and started again.

But also when I’m left to my own devices  that gestation of story stuff can be slow. I have found that in collaborations with people like ; Joel (Edgerton) or Spencer Susser or I’m writing a thing at the moment with a great Australian writer Luke Davies, who wrote the movie Life that Rob just did, that I love that process of sitting in a room with a smart human being and just talking about life, and I also love the fact that it speeds that process up – problems that might take me 3 weeks to solve by myself can be solved in 15 minutes by another person.

David after Animal kingdom and The Rover when are we going to see you do a Rom Com? You keep to go to dark places. 

Guy Pearce: It’s amazing when you do that and you think “imagine if we didn’t have that conversation, we just sorted that out, what else are we missing? What else is slipping through the cracks?”

David Michôd: Well it’s also because, er I don’t know if its bad to spill other peoples trade secrets but [one of my collaborators] started experimenting with dictating his scripts to an assistant, and what he has found is that it speeds the process up incredibly, simply because you have another person in the room  with you who is waiting for you to say something. When you are in that room by yourself, you’ll write 5 words and pheww! I need a break.

David Michôd: Yeah, I don’t know why. When I go to the movies I like to have powerful experiences, and for some reason  that darkness, and menace and sadness is for me a powerful experience. As strange as it sounds those are the moments that I get most exhilarated when I am in an edit room.

After writing and shooting and it comes together with sound and music, when its dark and powerful that’s when I feel my spine tingling.

Having said that I would love to have the experience of sitting in an audience watching a movie I have made that was making people laugh. I don’t know whether I’m capable but I’d love to give it a try.

People think I’m being facetious when I say that I think The Rover is really funny. Everything Rob does, especially in the face of Guy’s character. I thought your song in the car was really funny Rob, how was that?

Robert Pattinson: Yea, I thought it was so funny in the script.

David Michôd: Did it feel funny when you were doing it?

Robert Pattinson: No, actually it shouldn’t have.

David Michôd: It shouldn’t have?

Robert Pattinson: I was trying to telegraph for that scene. I thought it was pretty brave having that in the script. It was actually a different song at first, it was The Pussycat Dolls.  But yea, when we found the Keri Hilson song. I had never heard it before I thought it was written for the movie, it felt like a really specific decision.

David did you pick the song Pretty Girl Rock because, it stuck out so much?

David Michôd: I wanted there to be, at that moment in the film a particularly a dark juncture for Rob’s character, for there to be a moment that reminded the audience of the fact that his character was just a kid who in different circumstances would probably just be listening to music and thinking about girls.

It felt very important to me that you have that one moment of that and also just a moment of levity as well, because the movie can be a little relentlessly grim without those moments of levity.

I think you said it was the most remote place you have ever filmed was it a nice change to get away from the hysteria, cameras and that side of things?Rob, how did you find working in the Ozzy wilderness? Was it a bit of a culture shock?
Robert Pattinson: Kind of. We were in a place that there wasn’t really anyone out there. So I’m not sure of the culture.

Robert Pattinson: Yeah! Definitely it was kind of incredibly peaceful. You realise the value of anonymity again and how priceless it is. It was an unusual place and there was sort of mysticism of the area, its not just like being out in nothingness, there is an intensity to it. It was really hard. Almost savage.

David Michôd: It’s corny but it feels weirdly strangely spiritual being out there because you are kind of surrounded by a vast nothingness. But it is fun being out there too because when you are shooting in the city, you can leave work and have to have a shower, because you probably have a dinner to go to or whatever but being out there its fun just not having to care about anything, not caring about how filthy you are, not worrying about what clothes you are wearing.

Guy Pearce: We were all in the same boat.

On the subject of clothes, Guy the look of your character is very interesting, in certain scenes he looks like an exhumed corpse which makes the character a lot more powerful – how did the look of Eric come together? Did you have much input into his overall image?

Guy Pearce: Well David had pretty clear ideas about what he wanted, but we would also then have a discussion. I think to a degree the description of the clothes was in there.

David Michôd: Yes, shirt, shorts and sneakers.
Guy Pearce: Yea, that’s right. I was excited about wearing just wearing one costume for an entire movie, there is nothing worse than having to do a quick change.

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You’ve got to take that leap sometimes, you sort of have these ideas of what it could be, maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that and you realise you are still operating within some sort of conformity”
– Guy Pearce

 

Guy Pearce: What? Did you think – that’s how I turned up [laughing]? I remember we had a whole lot of discussion about our haircuts and we sort of tried something and David would come in and say it was nearly there but not right. At some point he said I really want you to look like you found a pair of blunt scissors  and you just cut it yourself. All about practicality. So I found a pair of old scissors and cut it myself. I think I might have been drunk while I was doing it.

You’ve got to take that leap sometimes, you sort of have these ideas of what it could be, maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that and you realise you are still operating within some sort of conformity and eventually you just have to go f’it and hope people don’t freak out the next day when you go to work.
[To David Michôd], did you mean that when you said you wanted me to cut my own hair.

David Michôd: Yea and you ended up giving yourself a really trendy haircut.

Was the atmosphere hushed between takes or was there levity?
Guy Pearce: It depends on what we were doing you know, but we were having fun, we pretty much had a good laugh on set. If we were doing a heavy, heavy scene it wasn’t appropriate to ruin the mood.

There wasn’t a lot of background to your characters given to the audience, or the collapse in general, did you guys sit down a lot beforehand and discuss the background of your characters and their place in the film?
Guy Pearce: Yea, pretty much as well as the week in Adelaide of rehearsals, which was really just the 3 of us in a hotel room getting to know each other and slowly going through the script.

We, well I can’t speak on Rob’s behalf, but David and I exchanged emails and chats beforehand, because I was really struggling to get my head around who this guy was now, and who he used to be.

So it was a bit of a laboured process for me to put David through to find him.

David Michôd: That’s what happens when you have a very taciturn character on the page, who doesn’t reveal himself very much in dialogue. It requires you sit around and talk about it a lot.

Robert Pattinson: Talking to you, I remembered having called you since the audition and a conversation about having the tops of his ears snipped off. I had read this thing about thieves in the Wild West who had the tops of their ears snipped off.  I thought that was such a great little thing.

Guy Pearce: So they could be more aerodynamic?

Robert Pattinson: No it was a punishment, to mark thieves. I thought he was the type of person who would get caught and have his ears snipped off. Thank God I didn’t have prosthetic ears in the end.

Robert was there anything specific you did to get into character?

Robert Pattinson: There was something, that I didn’t really realise I was doing. All the guns were controlled by an Armourer, obviously very serious about guns. He got so pissed off with me when I started playing with the guns and I realised that is what was getting me into character – annoying the Armourer.

I thought wow that is exactly what he would be doing, and being constantly told off. I was constantly clicking the hammer and I could see him sitting in the corner getting so angry. I was getting more and more into character irritating people.

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When we were out there, there was literally no option other than staying in a shipping container. It’s kind of nice, everyone is on totally equal footing. It doesnt let your vanity take hold.”
– Robert Pattinson

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David, what draws you to the stories that you tell? It seems that you focus on relationship dynamics and extreme personalities

David Michôd: To be honest I don’t really know. Sometimes it can be as simple as starting with something that is entirely meaningless and then find your way into it, find the things that feel meaningful.

I don’t have a book notebook that is full of stories that I must tell. Sometimes it feels like work to me to get into a thing I have to start from a place of hating everything and everything is a bad idea and this movie should not be made and I force my way into it. Force myself to love it – usually that comes from finding ways to connect it to love or sadness, or fear of death or whatever.

For me, as weird as it sounds, The Rover is a movie about love. I wouldn’t have been interested in making the film if it had just been a kind of boys-y, shoot em up, guys in the desert movie.

For me the whole reason to make it was the relationship between these two characters and reigniting the potential for love of Guy’s character and the lost kid who is just looking for someone to cling onto. That stuff is the reason to make a movie.

Guy how was it for you to be working on an Australian movie again?
Guy Pearce: Oh! It was fantastic obviously. Not just because its an Australian film but primarily because I got to work with David again. It was really interesting being out in that location. Someone said to me –  it must be great working at home again!  – well I don’t live there. So it was quite a schlep to get back home at the end of the job.

It’s really  satisfying on all sorts of levels, obviously every character you play is different so its hard to generalise but even with this one where the character is so extreme on some level and the character has gone to such an extreme place there is still something that you latch on to that is Australian when you are playing a character that is Australian. I know that it sounds really obvious but there are certain, rhythms or understanding that is very different from when you go to another country and play someone from a different country with a different accent. With a very different sense of logic or whatever.

As I say this is an extreme character I got to play, he is not your everyday Ozzy, but even so there is still something very personally satisfying.

David Michôd: Like you can wear it like a comfortable jacket.

Guy Pearce: Yea. I always love working at home and try to as much as I can.

The ending is pretty devastating, what was your reaction to it when you first read it in the script.
wear it like a comfortable jacket

Guy Pearce: I don’t know. I think I remember talking to you [David] about it. I really struggled with who this guy was, so I remember calling or emailing David and saying I thought the ending was fantastic, but had to go back and go through the whole script again and was really just looking for who this guy was and that was sort of driving everything for me.

I thought it was the most beautiful idea that you are sent on a particular kind of journey, for a reason you don’t get to understand until the very end. It is something so personal and so  representative of various elements of who we are and that was important to that guy. It sort of said everything about where he was in the world of the film. So I thought it was really a surprising and kind of beautifully sad piece of the puzzle that unfolds. I was really taken by it obviously.

Guy & Rob can you tell us a little bit about the differences in working on big films like Marvel franchises and the Twilight series as opposed to The Rover which has a has a much smaller independant feel to it?

Guy Pearce: We were discussing this yesterday. Often really the differences are the people you are working with, so there can be massive differences between one film and another – purely because they are in different countries or different people but the budgets are the same.

I think when it comes down to it and you are standing in front of the camera and you are acting and you have a director who wants a particular thing and you are just trying to successfully do what it is that you – there is no difference really. But if you stand back there are lots of executives standing around being nervous about lots of money, on a film like The Rover or Iron Man 3, although they weren’t particularly nervous about their money and they were pretty confident about it, the whole Marvel team I think.  But you are aware that it is bigger, in a way I prefer the more intimate situations, you can get answers out of the people you want answers from as opposed to hold on I need to find out from the hierarchy if we can change that word.

Robert Pattinson: I think The Rover is a more extreme example as well. When you have a big budget it creates expectations of how you are supposed to be treated. When we were out there, there was literally no option other than staying in a shipping container. It’s kind of nice, everyone is on totally equal footing. It doesnt let your vanity take hold.

Set in the near future, the world of THE ROVER is one where mankind’s greed and excesses have pushed civilization to the breaking point.With society in decline, the rule of law has disintegrated and life is cheap. Hardened loner Eric (Guy Pearce) travels the desolate towns and roads of the scorched and dangerous Australian outback. When a brutal gang of thieves steals his car and only remaining possession, they leave behind the wounded Rey (Robert Pattinson) in their wake. Forcing Rey to help track the gang, Eric gives chase. Determined beyond reason, unrelenting in the pursuit of his prey, Eric will go to any lengths to take back the one thing that matters to him.Written and directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom), THE ROVER will be released in UK cinemas on August 22nd.