LA Times with Robert Pattinson on The Rover Red Carpet

 
 
LA Times On 'The Rover' red carpet, Robert Pattinson in a new guise

The only similarity between Robert Pattinson’s work in “Twilight” and his new film “The Rover”? The screaming fans who still appeared as he walked the red carpet in Los Angeles on Thursday at the U.S. premiere of the Australian indie movie.

“It’s always distracting when that happens,” “Rover” director David Michôd said in a rare lull of silence outside the Regency Bruin Theatre.

Before casting Pattinson in “The Rover” – the director's second film (the first was 2010’s “Animal Kingdom”) -- Michôd said he wasn’t versed in Pattinson’s vampire period.

“I was pretty much totally unfamiliar with his work, but I had had a meeting with him before I even know I was going to make “The Rover” and really liked him,” Michôd said. “I found his physical energy really kind of beguiling and he was really sort of emotionally available, so I really wanted to sort of see what he could do. And, he just knocked my little socks off to the extent that me and my casting director turned to each other once he left the room and went, ‘Well, OK, that’s done, right?’”

That meeting eventually led to Michôd casting Pattinson in his new movie, which features the star and Guy Pearce as an unlikely duo who embark on a quest across a post-apocalyptic landscape. Pattinson trades glittering skin and perfectly coiffed hair for open wounds and a shoddy buzz cut.

“It’s just so kind of stark, and it was just so different,” Pattinson said of the material. “Something just spoke to me in it, and I really don’t know quite what it was.”

He added, "If these scripts came along once every six months, I would do them every single time. But they just don’t.”

Pearce noted that he "saw a transformation before Day 1, really,” and Liz Watts, one of the film's producers, said she believed the team ethos helped Pattinson hone the character.

The actor, she said, "came to the outback and put up with flies and heat and dust and all the rest.” (Pattinson has praised the isolated location of the film for helping him focus on the role.)

There was a different vibe in Westwood on Thursday night, the screaming fans a reminder of Pattinson's more typical moviemaking experience.

Clutching a three-foot rendering of Pattinson’s scruffy face, Nancy Cambino, 47, said she traveled from her native Long Island, N.Y., to see Pattinson at “The Rover” premiere. She became a fan during his “Twilight” days, and has met him multiple times. But it’s not “Twilight” that keeps her holding her Pattinson cutout.
“I actually don’t like ‘Twilight.’ I never did,” Cambino said. “I’m a Rob fan, not a ‘Twilight’ fan. I saw ‘Twilight’ and I went, ‘Oh, I like this guy,’ and I went to watch all his other movies and I like them much better.” Cambino said she already had her ticket to see “The Rover” that night at a public screening, eagerly pointing to the words on her Pattinson poster below the movie’s title.“A career-defining role. That’s what it’s all about,” she said.

Thanks to Cersei

Robert Pattinson, David Michod and Guy Pearce in a couple of videos from the LA Press Junket

The best thing about these videos is knowing there are so many more to come.. Press Junkets, giving us PromoRob love for weeks.

HitFix Interview.
Rob, Guy and David discuss making the film, concepts of bullying and the hope within the film.



The Wrap.
Discussing Rob's accent, character Eric's anger problem, and that 'Pretty Girl Rock' moment - which for those of us who haven't seen the movie yet, I think it's the most anticipated scene. At least it is for me..



Thanks to Cersei

Photo's of Robert Pattinson and Co from today's The Rover promo events.

Some great pics from today's events - smiley PromoRob for the win.

   
 
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Thanks to Cersei

Robert Pattinson talks 'Uglifying' and Singing and more in a Yahoo Movies Q&A

YahooMovies Q&A: Robert Pattinson on Escaping Twi-Hard Expectations and Dodging the Paparazzi 

The Twilight movies were clearly a huge blessing for Robert Pattinson, but also somewhat of a curse: The 28-year-old Brit has been working overtime to break out of the pin-up mold, gravitating toward edgy indies like David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and this week’s The Rover, directed by Animal Kingdom filmmaker David Michôd. The sometimes brutally violent film features Pattinson as a left-for-dead “half-wit” who joins a vengeful Guy Pearce’s as they travel across a rural, post-apocalyptic Australia. The very candid Pattinson talked to us about getting down-and-dirty for the role, his strategy for keeping photographers away, and what artist has reignited his love for hip-hop.

Let’s talk about your look in this film. People have said you “uglified” yourself for the role.
The one weird thing [I had] was the teeth. I thought everyone was going to have s—-ty teeth in it. Then I end up being the only person in it with s—-ty teeth in it [laughs]. But I kind of liked the idea of it, because I went to school with people who didn’t brush their teeth when they were kids, and they always ended up being weirdos.

What did you do to get those nasty teeth?
It’s like paint, and whenever there was a long scene, it would wipe off my teeth. So I would end up with white teeth at the end of the scene, which eventually became a massive hassle. But it was still kind of cool. It was such an odd look when you turn around and see yourself [in the mirror] and there’s this weird thing coming out of your face.

Did you go out in public much to get reactions, or even just to get in character?
Yeah, [but] there was nowhere to go, really. It’s funny: Whenever you have your head shaved, less people come up to you and ask for pictures [laughs]. That’s why I always try to keep my hair really short.

They’re like, “No, no, I don’t want that Robert Pattinson.”
Exactly. “I want the sexy one!”

You very memorable sing along to the Keri Hilson song "Pretty Girls Rock" in this film. Did you have any hand in picking that track?
I do kind of really like that song. I didn’t realize how massive a song it was. I had never heard it before. David emailed it to me and I was like, “Wow, where did you find this?” I thought it was an original track, or a really small thing that he’d found somewhere. But I thought it was kind of perfect for it. As soon as he played it, I was like, “That’s hilarious.”

What’s your relationship with pop music? Are you a fan?
I guess I don’t listen to that much pop music. I listen to almost exclusively hip-hop, especially in L.A. I listen to Shade 45 on Sirius.

What are your jams?
I’m kind of obsessed with Tyga at the moment. I don’t know why, I’ve suddenly had this resurgence of hip-hop. I didn’t listen to it for years, and now I’m obsessed. When I was in school, from like 1997 to 2003, I was really, really into hip-hop. All of my favorite songs are from then. But there’s a couple of new people; I actually really like Chris Brown’s stuff [laughs].

Amy Nicholson, the critic from LA Weekly, wrote of The Rover, “Pattinson appears to have picked this role precisely because it will send his Twilight fans screaming out of the theater.” Any truth to that?
No, I don’t want anyone running out of the theater! I want everyone coming into the theater [laughs]. It’s kind of curious how people interpret it. There’s an element of wanting to see [my Rover character] in a sympathetic way, because of Twilight. But I wasn’t trying to play it sympathetically at all. [laughs] I mean, he kills people. And he’s not quite there.

So clearly critics as well as your fans are making this connection from “A” to “B” but that’s not something you ever think about?
Yeah. I mean a lot of people take away completely different things. I never really try to predict how people are going to react to something. Because I have no idea. I’ve approached every movie thinking like, “I’m going to do the best thing ever.” [laughs] And then regardless of what critics or an audience or anybody says afterwards, I either like it or I don’t —that’s the only thing I care about.

Is there any part of you that misses the sheer madness that accompanied the Twilight series?
Um….when you’re doing the movies, it’s the same thing. I’ve realized how much I loved shooting way outside of the city, because I just can’t stand people taking photos. Even when I was just doing this movie Life in Toronto, we were still out in the middle of nowhere, but it was only about an hour from Toronto. And just everyday, there’s [paparazzi] taking photos with long lenses. And then you can’t talk to anybody on the crew unless you want to have a million photographs. And I feel like I’m putting money into those guys’ pockets by just standing outside. So I’ll constantly hide to make their life as difficult as possible. But then it makes your life difficult as well.

Has it become kind of a game ducking them, or is it just pure annoyance?
It’s literally just [that] I don’t want them to have anything for free. And people who see the pictures, they just assume if you’re getting photographed a lot, it’s because you want to. So if you try to claim privacy afterwards, they’ll be like, “Well what you didn’t care that time.” So you have to be pretty consistent, and say like, “I never want to get photographed, ever.”

Do you ever have to go out in disguise?
It never really works. But I do have a lot of little tricks, like car switches and stuff. You end up being like a bit of a spy. [laughs] Very covert.

Thanks to Cersei

Variety Interview with Robert Pattinson, Guy Pearce and David Michod

Variety ‘The Rover’ Premiere: Producer Praises Robert Pattinson as ‘Consummate Actor’
After a starry premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Robert Pattinson, Guy Pearce and director David Michod brought “The Rover” to The Regency Bruin Thursday.

Michod told Variety that he hadn’t been familiar with Pattinson’s previous work. “Rob just came in and did a beautiful audition for me that was both vulnerable and completely alive,” he said.

“This proved that seeing him work with Guy Pearce and Scoot McNairy, we realize he’s a consummate actor,” added producer David Linde. “He’s in the ‘Twilight’ movies and people don’t think of him in this way, but as you see in this movie he’s the real deal.”

For Pattinson, he said his goal is to work with good, ambitious directors. “These roles just don’t come up that often,” he said. “A script like this is so rare, I mean, it’s in the top five scripts I’ve ever read.”

Pattinson plays Rey, a yellow-toothed, simple-minded man who is one of the last survivors in a world 10 years after an economic collapse.

“I like how my character was set up. It was just sort of two really dense dialogue heavy scenes in the midst of almost no dialogue, so it let you be pretty free to do anything with it,” said Pattinson.

And on his character: “I think he’s someone who’s been regarded by absolutely everyone around him of having something wrong with him his whole life and he’s never required to think for himself. So when Erik (played by Pearce) kidnaps/adopts him, it forces him to think, (but) the mechanism of thought is so rusty, he has to kind of force it out and it’s almost like he’s being born again.”

“The Rover” has been described as a post-apocalyptic film, but Michod said, “I actually didn’t want the story be post-apocalyptic, I wanted it to be to the extent, like an apocalypse, as something that wipes everything out.”

“I wanted everything that was wrong in the world to feel directly connected to everything that is wrong in the world today.”

Pearce plays the lead role in the film. “I had to go through a bit of a process with (David Michod) just talking about the character to try and understand it,” he said. “There’s a lot of him that’s kind of gone now. I needed to understand some of the things he had in order to, therefore, lose them.”

Linde said pairing Pearce and Pattinson was really exciting because they are two guys who are in two very different parts of their career. “For Rob, we always felt he was on the cusp of doing very serious and accomplished work, and the idea of a guy who’s been doing it for a while and one who’s really emerging seemed very exciting.”

Producer Liz Watts, Susan Prior, Jaime King, Rami Malek, Claudia Levy, Bar Paly, Catherine Hardwicke, Peter Facinelli also attended the premiere. The party continued at the W Hotel.

Thanks to Cersei

USA Today and The Hollywood Reporter Premiere interviews with Robert Pasttinson

USA Today Inside Hollywood: Why does RPatz still audition?
When the franchise that made you famous has made over $1.3 billion at the box office, you’d probably never lower yourself to audition for a role again, right?

Not Robert Pattinson.

To win over Animal Kingdom writer/director David Michôd, RPatz threw any Twilight swagger out the window. “I didn’t know anything about him,” Michôd told us Thursday night at The Rover‘s L.A. premiere. (He said this with a straight face.) “I hadn’t seen any of the Twilight films.”

But Michôd remembered meeting Pattinson and his “really wonderfully awkward physical energy,” which the director thought would be perfect for The Rover, a post-apocalyptic drama, which leaves RPatz caked in dirt and blood as the dim younger brother of a car thief.

Despite the fact that few in Pattinson’s position would continue to test for roles, said Michôd, Pattinson was cool about it:

There were no airs, there was no arrogance, there was no sense of entitlement. Even in terms of testing for me. He knew that he needed to work hard to have the kind of career that he wants.

How did Pattinson, dressed in a natty teal suit, feeling about bringing his Cannes hit to the U.S.? “A bit scary,” said the actor, looking around at the college crowd at Westwood’s Regency Bruin theater waving signs and posters. (Even Zac Efron was there.)

"But we had a really young audience in Australia a few days ago and it was such a bafflingly different reaction. Everybody was like, howling with laughter. And in Cannes you could hear a pin drop the entire time. Crazy. So I have no idea what the reaction’s going to be.”


TheHollywoodReporter Robert Pattinson at 'The Rover' L.A. Premiere: 'I'm Not Trying to Break Out of Anything'

The teen heartthrob, made famous for his role in "Twilight," confessed to THR at his latest film's premiere in Los Angeles that he has "lots and lots of secrets." The screams of teenage girls could be heard for miles as Robert Pattinson hit the Los Angeles Regency Bruin Theatre on Thursday night at the U.S. premiere of The Rover.

The British star, donned in a navy blue Alexander McQueen suit, hit the red carpet with writer and director David Michod, producers David Linde and Liz Watts, and costar Guy Pearce for the film's Los Angeles debut.
Made famous for his leading role in the Twilight saga, the actor told The Hollywood Reporter that he is not confining his career to a specific genre. "I’m not really trying to break out of anything. I feel like every single movie I’ve done is part of the same road. I’m not trying to distance myself of anything particularly," Pattinson said. "I just hope people like [the film]."

Set a decade following a global economic depression, The Rover tells the story of Eric (Pearce), who relentlessly pursues a brutal gang in the Australian outback that steal his car: his only remaining possession. Left abandoned by his brother and fellow gang members, Rey (Pattinson) is forced to guide Eric in tracking down the brutal clan.

"To be honest, [The Rover] did come to me from a place of anger, when it was a despair and anger that I was feeling about the state of the world today," Michod explained. "The movie is set a few decades in the future, but it isn’t set for post apocalypse. Michod wanted the evils showcased in the film to be "directly connected" and representative of the wrongs seen and experienced in "the world today."

While filming, the cast and crew endured extreme heat (just over 110 degrees), rain storms and outback flies, which are apparent throughout the movie. "It always helps to be in real locations," Pearce said. "That extreme heat, those flies, and that vast expanse of desert — it just adds to it, like you’re putting on a costume. It takes you there."

Though each role was a deciding factor in choosing to partake in the project, both Pearce and Pattinson remarked that Michod's directorship was ultimately why they committed to the film. "It wasn’t the role that drew me to the film. It was the script and David that drew me to the film…this time it was really about David being the filmmaker that he is," Pearce revealed. Pattinson also remarked: "I really like David a lot. I love Animal Kingdom…[the script] just seemed so different and original…it was a bit of a no brainer."

Audiences can expect to see another set of Pattinsnon’s acting talents in gangster-type film Idol's Eye alongside Robert De Niro out at the end of this year, which still comes as a surprise to him: "It sounds crazy for me to say…that’s something which I’ve wanted – which I think anyone — would want to do."

Though the Rover star is seemingly normal and content with the simple things in life, including inflatable furniture, driving a 1989 BMW, and downsizing from a $6.27 million home to a rental, he is a man of mystery. "[I have] lots and lots of secrets, that will remain secrets forever."

Following the premiere, an exclusive after party at the W Hotel in Westwood drew the likes of Neighbors star Zac Efron, Katy Perry and Michelle Rodriguez. Party-goers were served an assortment of appetizers including sliders, mini pigs in a blanket, chicken skewers and an array of desserts at a chocolate fondue bar.

Thanks to Cersei

MORE Pics Of Robert Pattinson Dazzling In His Electric Blue Suit At 'The Rover' Premiere In LA

MORE Pics Of Robert Pattinson Dazzling In His Electric Blue Suit At 'The Rover' Premiere In LA

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