Variety Interview Transcript
Variety: So I just saw the movie last night. What strike me is the role you’re playing is so tricky and difficult to do and to do it well This doesn’t mean that I think you look silly but there’s a risk, always when you’re playing a swoony, good looking guy. I just wondered when you fist read the screenplay did that frighten you in any way?
Rob: I thought it was impossible when I first read it. So I got told about it about 5 months before I did the audition. I said I can’t do it – it’s impossible to play it. You can only play it as a two dimensional blob. You just have to be a ‘man meat’. You just have to take your shirt off. Just be some bland thing for people to project whatever they want onto. I didn’t even bother getting a six pack. Even in the audition, that was part of the audition, you have to take your shirt off. I can tell you right now if that’s the contest, I wouldn’t’ get it.
Variety: They actually made you work out a little, as I recall?
Rob: Yeah, I worked out tons. But it is a very tricky part .I don’t want to look like an idiot. I haven’t seen it – I probably did end up looking like and idiot.
Variety: No you didn’t. I went and I thought in the beginning when you read the book and you don’t understand why he’s behaving the way he does. It must’ve been sort of – why are you behaving like an asshole at the beginning? Why are you, explain it.
Rob: It’s like, I’ve been trying to humanise it. If you think you’re a dick… in the most basic terms. And you really like someone and you feel there’s a connection there and there’s a possibility of something happening. Whenever I like someone I’m just like – ‘Don’t like me, I’m a dick’. That’s the kind of mentality – that’s an extreme effect. You can’t stop hanging around them, but at the same time whenever you’re around them, I say ‘Seriously, you should not like me.’
I’ve suddenly realise why Stephenie Meyer said in that interview why I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend. I suddenly realised. I was just wondering all day…
Variety: Well, you’re a very good boyfriend. You’re the fantasy boyfriend in this, which is why women are responding so strongly as they are. Can you analyse that a little. It’s the part that’s created that women are responding so strongly to. They’re throwing you in to the mix.
Rob: They just transferred it.
Variety: That’s right
Rob: I still don’t really know. I think I play it different to how it is in the book. If felt like I was doing it slightly differently.
Variety: Explain. Tell me what is your concept?
Rob: In the book, he’s so in control of himself, even though he said he said he isn’t. You have a feeling of security when you’re reading the book. You know that when he said I don’t want to do anything to harm you I know he’d never harm her, ever. A lot of stuff I had to change, because it was too different from the book. Even little tiny things where at the end, even in the prom. Just little things, I try to make it look painful
Variety: You did, you look like you were struggling. There’s something else that goes into movies, they have to look real. You have to bring it to life.
Was there a debate about the make up? Tell me what when on with that.
Rob: Because I don’t have that many lines on my face, they can’t do it too white because it took away all my expressions. My makeup is a lot finer than all the other vampires. I just look like a Kabuki thing. Half Kabuki half transvestite and they had to do that. And then they ended up doing an airbrush thing. I don’t understand the concept behind the lipstick. But just various different things. I wasn’t particularly involved – I was just the victim. I didn’t really think about the make up when I was going into it.
Variety: I have the screener of the movie HTB. I wondered why they haven’t got a distributor? When did you shoot that in relation to this movie Twilight?
Rob: I shot it in spring last year. I don’t know why it hasn’t got a distributor. I think it’s just very random. That’s why I liked it. It’s almost impossible to market. And whenever you see how they try to market it, that’s not what it is.
Variety: If they put it on the internet, your fans would want to watch it. That would be a way to present it.
Rob: I mean, all the festivals it’s going into now. Twilight is definitely helping. It’s getting all these audience choice awards. All the Twilight fans are going into it. I went to the Austin film festival. It was packed…there were hundreds of people.
Variety: But it’s this little tiny, low budget quirky British movie. He’s so sad and depressed.
Rob: I love the script so much. Very different from everything I read. And the ending I love it so much. It’s changed now, though. In the end where he had a big gig in the end, no one clapped in the script. He didn’t even notice. They said it’s just a great feel-good ending. It’s not a really good ending at all. But the guy feels good. Maybe the guy feels good the next day. Maybe he won’t.
Variety: I understand that you’re a good musician. You like to play music.
Rob: I didn’t write it for the movie. Two friends of mine wrote lyrics to one of the songs years ago and I wrote another one with another guy last year. That was recorded in the computer. I’ve never been to a studio before. I think Nikki Reed gave the CD to Catherine and Catherine just put in these 2 songs in the cut. And asked me to look at it and I thought it looked quite cool. Even when they put it in, right in the beginning on the edit and it wasn’t even as hyped as now so I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t even know that they’re going to be in the soundtrack until fairly recently.
Variety: Are you interested in pursuing music as a career?
Rob: Not right now because it looks kind of tacky to cash in something. If it was my movie, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I don’t want to do it at the back of somebody else’s work.
Variety: What is your plan as far as the kind of movies you’d like to do right now? Little Ashes is coming out in March? A different kind of romance. A gay romance. How would you describe it?
Rob: There are a lot of similarities between Twilight and that. Sort of very vaguely. I guess it’s sort of devastating. When two people essentially fall in love with each other, arguably. No one really knows the extent of their actual relationship in the film. It ruins everything in both of their lives. Not so much in Lorca’s but it really destroys a lot of things in Dali because he’s such an intensely sensitive man. He had so many neurosis about everything. His sanity and sensibility was in such a knife-edge. His whole life… it would’ve been impossible to do everything. I guess in Twilight it’s the same thing, but they kind of figure it out, whereas in Little Ashes they didn’t.
Variety: What strikes me in the end of Twilight is I’m really anxious to see the next one. Are you getting much response from men in the junket?
Rob: I’m surprised by the guys who’s seen it – they came out saying that it’s a girly film. I haven’t seen it? Is it a girly film?
Variety: It’s a girly film, I’m sorry. How do you feel about doing more of them? It’s gonna happen.
Rob: I’d gone into it thinking it’s a trilogy. I planned out how to play it for a trilogy. I don’t have any problem with doing it. I have a lot of ideas about the second one. I’d love to do it.
Variety: The second one doesn’t have that much of you in it. How are they gonna deal with that? They’ll have to get you in somehow.
Rob: I like that, having the ominous presence. Having the big spectacular comeback at the end. That’s what I liked about it. It would be terrible if they keep sticking little bits of me in the movie. It will dilute it. The big comeback where he tries to kill himself in Italy. It needs to have less presence. That’s what I like about the characters. That’s what makes the second book good. The second book is my favourite of the series.
Variety: Why is that?
Rob: The same way the first one…the first one feels very voyeuristic. Stephenie Meyer writes in a way that – it’s like reading somebody’s diary. In a lot of ways it’s simple but it’s so obsessive that only she could write them.
In the second one. Even a simple thing like the months in the beginning. In tons other books it seems like the tackiest little thing but with her it seems like a powerful tool. I thought that was really sad when that happened. A lot of it was really really sad.
I also like that it’s so long. It allows that kind of claustrophobic – everything take the characters so long to come to terms with things. In most teens or young adult books – guess it’s based on young adults. They’re only about this long.
Variety: What’s next, do you know?
Rob: I’m doing a movie called parts per billion with Dennis Hoped, Olivia Thilby, Rosario Dawson – in January I think.
Variety: American accent?
Rob: Yes
Variety: And that’s what kind of movie?
Rob: It’s another love story, starring three couple, three different generations. It’s in LA. I have no idea how to explain it. It’s a very poetic script. Kind of ridiculously poetic. I’ve never seen a script like this. It’s a kind of treatise in marriage. How your future can be based on a relationship with someone at different time periods. It’s very strange.
Variety: Are you getting a lot of offers now?
Rob: Sort of. The industry is scared of hype. I’m scared of hype. They don’t want to risk it.
Variety: The test will come after the movie.
Rob: Yes, if it makes money. That’s how the industry works.
Variety: When that happens, are you interested in the big studio movie that some people are going to throw at you?
Rob: I don’t know, I don’t categorise everything. Sometimes it’s about the people but – it’s always the script. I think people are starting to forget that in movies . The script should come first. Even if it’s a good director, I don’t care – if it’s a rubbish script. I don’t care if it’s a big studio movie or not. There’s a lot first time directors that are also writers. I always judge if someone is a good writer.
Transcribed by Cilla for Pattinson Online. Do not place on any other website without permission.