Thinking of Rob   It's all about Robert Pattinson

James Gray talks about the status of Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Lost City of Z’

From The Film Stage

Before things wrap up here, very quick: Lost City of Z is as close as we’re hearing?

Z? Yes, absolutely. I’ve been on a scout. Pre-production should start sometime in the first week of June. I’m extremely excited about it. It’s very different from anything I’ve done — and yet, of course, the same. I have very, very high hopes for it. Principal photography, I believe, will start on August 8, although it depends on when Charlie Hunnam will finish King Arthur, which is what he’s doing now; if that finishes on schedule, that’s when I will begin. It shoots in the U.K. and Columbia, probably.

What feeling do you have when on the cusp of starting a production? Is there a lot of anxiety, or is it mostly pure anticipation?

Well, it’s almost exclusively terror. It’s funny: I don’t actually derive much pleasure from making a movie. I derive a lot of pleasure from having made a film. I’m very excited; it’s going to be a huge challenge. But I’m very scared, and I’m under no illusions that I’m going to go to the jungle and have a great time and it’s going to have a party. I mean, it’s going to be an epic struggle, and I’m going to try and do my very best. I have many, many ideas. The project’s been gestating for a long time, and, in some respects, that’s a challenge in and of itself, because you have many, many ideas, and you want to make sure the project has a unity and a singularity and a uniqueness and a consistency. So, if it’s gestating for a long time, you worry that you won’t have that.

From The Awards Circuit

On if the long developing project The Lost City of Z is finally next for him

JG – Yeah, that’s going into preproduction in a matter of four weeks or five weeks now, before I have to go off and do that. I’m very excited, it’s hopefully the movie that, you know, bridges the step between the films I’ve made which are very personal and small, and what will be a different chapter in my life, because it’s a much bigger film.