
On the list of life’s great pleasures, walking down a grim street in a one-horse Australian town probably doesn’t rank very high.
Yet if you’re one of the world most recognized — and harangued — faces, it can have a remarkable effect on your psyche and work.
So it went, at least, for former “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson. The actor made the new post-apocalyptic Western “The Rover” in the otherworldly solitude of remotest Australia — veritable ghost towns with names such as Leigh Creek and Quorn — allowing him to escape the maddening swarms and focus on his acting as never before.
“It was great, just being able to be out there with no one around,” the British heartthrob recalled of making David Michod’s Aussie indie, which opens Friday, before giving his trademark laugh: a nervous chuckle that can seem to go on a half-beat too long and is decidedly at odds with the suave sullenness of the vampire role that made him famous.
Added Michod: “I don’t think I ever saw an actor so happy as when I saw Rob coming down the street toward me all by himself. He was practically bouncing.”
Maybe big stars should shoot in a down-under desert more often. In the waning years of his “Twilight” period and in the two years since, Pattinson, now 28, tried to redefine himself several times. He made a romantic melodrama, a period circus piece and a tale of the French nobility adapted from a Guy de Maupassant novel.
Yet though there have been shards of promise — his oddly introspective Wall Street tycoon in David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis” in 2012 — Pattinson has never shown the range he does here.
Realy great Robert Pattinson interview with Brisbane Times. Rob talks about his current and future projects
The vampire is dead. Or at least by now he should be. With The Rover, the new film from Animal Kingdom director David Michod, Robert Pattinson has finally shaken off the Twilight tag that threatened to define him forever as an actor.
In The Rover, he has an accent from America’s deep south, bad teeth and a strange emotional dependency on others. It’s a role that has attracted some very positive reviews: Variety critic Scott Foundas talked about ‘‘a career-redefining performance … that reveals untold depths of sensitivity and feeling’’.
Pattinson is a relaxed interview subject. He has a hearty laugh, and the air of someone who hasn’t worked out all his lines in advance, but he’s also ready to explain and explore what interests him. He’s serious about his work, and keen to make movies with people he admires and respects.
He’s aware that he’s getting favourable reviews for The Rover. He’s happy about this, of course, he says, ‘‘because I really love the movie’’. But when it comes to his performance, he admits, ‘‘I always think of it as a work in progress, and it just gets frustrating, thinking about things you could fix.’’
Segment that includes an interview with David and Rob starts at 23:45 – click HERE or on pic for link
David Michôd talks about Robert Pattinson and The Rover in these 3 new interviews
ShockYa – Starts at 15:10