Sunday, April 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Reese Impressed By Rob's Tactics To Avoid Paps
Newly married Reese Witherspoon says she could learn a thing or two about fame from Water for Elephants co-star Robert Pattinson.Did she try to give him advice? "Me?!" she gasped to USA TODAY's Andrea Mandell via phone. "If anything I'd probably be asking his advice. He has, like, military tactics to avoid paparazzi. It's pretty incredible the operations that go on."
In the film (a tan!) R-Patz takes a break from hunky vampire Edward Cullen to join the Water for Elephants' 1930s-set circus. And while Reese says her kids are still too young for Twilight, the age range of fans camping out by the Water for Elephants set was unbelievable. "I've worked with a lot of people but I've never seen the amount of attention or paparazzi or just fans camped out on the edge of the set ever in my whole life," she says. "There'd be little, little girls camped out, 7-year-olds with their parents at 4 o'clock in the morning. Five o'clock in the morning we'd pull off of set - I was bleary eyed and there'd be 10 women waiting on the roof of their cars just trying to see him."
Video: Behind the scenes of WFE & interview with ET
Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon find forbidden love under the big top in their new period drama 'Water for Elephants,' and Reese says the film is "full of peril and drama and danger and love and romance."
"It's that kind of romance that is about second chances," explains Reese. "Sometimes you can be in your life and sort of trapped in a circumstance that you just can't get out of, and one day someone comes along and throws you a rope and you have an opportunity at a new life."
Based on the best-selling novel by Sara Gruen, 'Water for Elephants' follows an elderly man (Hal Holbrook) reminiscing about his days working as an animal caretaker at a circus. A young veterinary school student (Robert) witnessing the beauty and brutality of life under the big top, he falls for Marlena (Reese), the captivating star performer, and suffers the wrath of her charismatic but dangerous husband, August (Christoph Waltz).
advertisement
"He falls in love with her at first sight," says Robert of his character. "She just seems kind of magical to him, and she doesn't see herself as that at all. She sees herself as just like a work horse, that's it, and thinks there's no fantasy in life and all, and he just refuses to see her as anything else other than this complete fantasy figure."
Friday, April 1, 2011
Filmmaker Statement Regarding Breaking Dawn Leaks
Dear Twilight Saga fans,
As some of you may know, pictures and screen grabs of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn as a work in progress have leaked on the internet. We are extremely proud of this film and also extremely heartbroken to see it out there at this stage.
The film and these images are not yet ready or in their proper context. They were illegally obtained and their early dissemination is deeply upsetting to the actors, the filmmakers and Summit who are working so hard to bring these movies to fruition to you in November 2011 and November 2012.
Please, for those who are posting, stop. And please, though the temptation is high, don’t view or pass on these images. Wait for the film in its beautiful, finished entirety to thrill you.
Sincerely,
Stephenie Meyer, Bill Condon, Wyck Godfrey and Summit Entertainment
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
USA Today: Stephenie Meyer talks Rob, Kristen, Breaking Dawn, and more
VANCOUVER, B.C. — When Stephenie Meyer walks into a room of Twilight fans, there's no doubt she's their undisputed vampire queen.
Ten lucky Twilight fans from around the world have come to this metropolitan Canadian city to meet the mega-selling author whose young-adult novels about an alluring vampire and his human soul mate have entranced them since 2005.
It's hard to say who's enjoying this total Twilight talkfest more — the attendees or the writer.
"I just love having the chance to sit down with a small group of fans," says Meyer, who is looking a little more Hollywood these days and a bit less like a suburban mom of three. "Bigger events are just too nerve-racking."
For this literary star, the days of chatting with a few fans at a local bookstore are over. Meyer is an international celebrity. Her books sell in dozens of countries. The film versions are hotly anticipated. Fan sites have gone viral.
This two-day chat fest with Meyer, which took place last Friday and Saturday, was a top-secret affair. Even the attendees weren't told where in the world they'd be meeting with Meyer until after they were notified they were among the chosen 10.
But every Twilight fan intuitively knows why Vancouver, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a logical meeting place — the cast and crew of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2, the final movies based on the four-book series, have been filming here since mid-February.
These die-hard Twi-hards know everything about the paranormal series that centers on the love between Edward Cullen, the sexy vampire portrayed in the films by dreamy Robert Pattinson, and teenage Bella Swan, played by the enigmatic Kristen Stewart.
Ranging in age from 15 to 34, the contest winners include Eden Marie Starnes, 16, of Port Charlotte, Fla., and the sole male winner, Stefan Caes, 26, of Germany, who secretly entered the contest in hopes of winning and surprising his wife, Jenny, also 26, who's here with him.
"We've been together since we were 17, so we see a lot of our story in Edward's and Bella's," says Jenny, who married Stefan nine months ago.
Two fans were chosen in random drawings held by Little, Brown for Young Readers, Meyer's publishers in the USA and Canada. The others won contests — which ranged from creating videos to writing essays to completing aTwilight trivia quiz — sponsored by publishers in France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Taiwan, China, Brazil and the U.K.
Super fans, super discussions
In roundtable discussions with Meyer at a Vancouver hotel, the winners discuss with finesse and endless authority vampire anatomy, werewolf legends, the back stories of the series' minor characters and, of course, the Edward/Bella/Jacob love triangle. (Jacob is the werewolf who also loves Bella and is played in the films by the often shirtless Taylor Lautner.)
But like seasoned journalists (many of these fans blog about the series), they're also here to ferret out juicy details: When will Meyer publish a new novel? What's it like being on the Twilight film set? What's new in The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, a 543-page encyclopedic companion that Little, Brown will publish in hardcover for $24.99 on April 12? (The e-book will be available for $11.99 on April 13.)
Meyer, relaxed and happy to share, tells them plenty:
•On the illustrated guide: "My favorite part is the vampire histories. There's a lot there that's new. Alice's (Cullen) back story is one no one has known until now. And I think fans will be surprised at how much fun (Cullen nemesis) Victoria's story is."
•On whether she'll ever write more books about Edward and Bella: "The story's already been told, and I doubt I'll ever write another series based on the same characters."
•On the possibility she'd ever finish Midnight Sun, a Twilight novel told from Edward's viewpoint that she nixed when parts of it were leaked online in 2008: "I'm hoping to do it someday because I know that's what people want. No matter what book I put out from here to eternity they'll want Midnight Sun, but I'm just not writing about vampires right now."
•On an as-yet-untitled book she might publish next: "It's a fantasy that takes place in another world where people are using bows and arrows and swords. There's a little bit of magic, but it's a very limited form of magic. The characters are human, and some have the ability to use magic and some don't. It's pretty dark. People die. The main character is a 17-year-old girl, and she's kind of cool."
•On another book she might complete and publish: "When I was growing up, I was obsessed with mermaids. I do have a very elaborate outline for a book. I'm not working on it right now, but I have the feeling it's going to be big. It's going to be 1,000 pages."
•On the second book in her three-book adult science-fiction series that began with The Host in 2008: "I have the outline written and the first two chapters. I need to get on it."
What Meyer says about the filming of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, which because of the expansive story line is being told in two parts. (Part 1 is scheduled for release Nov. 18 and Part 2 in November 2012):
•The much-anticipated wedding of Edward and Bella has not been filmed yet, but Stewart is being fitted for the as-yet-unrevealed bridal gown. "It's such an interesting mix," says Meyer. "It has a vintage feel, but at the same time, there's an edge to it. It's really beautiful. And then on Kristen — oh, she looks amazing in clothes —and in that dress she's so lithe and unbelievable."
•On working with Pattinson and Lautner: "Rob is more like Jacob than Edward. He's goofy, he's funny, he doesn't take much seriously. But he can turn Edward on like that (she snaps her fingers) when he needs to be Edward. Taylor's who we hang out with most. He's a lot like fun, happy Jacob."
•On her expanded role as co-producer of the two new movies: "The big difference is just being there and seeing everything. I feel I've seen so much of the movie and really understand what it will look like. There are still a lot of compromises. That hasn't changed. It doesn't make a huge difference, but I have a producer credit, which is crazy."
Some mysteries remain
One question she won't answer: whether the werewolf/shape shifter Jacob and Renesmee, the human/vampire hybrid child of Edward and Bella, could ever have children. (Jacob is a teenager, but baby Renesmee is aging at an accelerated rate.) "That is a question I'm reserving the right not to answer, because there is a chance I'll go back to their story."
At the end of Day 2's discussions and a round of book signings and photo ops, Meyer sits down with USA TODAY to share more details about her busy life and filming Breaking Dawn. (This reporter was the only journalist invited to attend this international fan event.)
Meyer, 37, remains as warm and friendly as ever. She's wearing form-fitting gray trousers, a floral T-shirt, a perfectly tailored jacket and killer gray satin slingback high heels.
Some of Breaking Dawn was filmed in Baton Rouge from October to mid-February, and Meyer's husband, Pancho, now a stay-at-home dad, and their three sons Gabe, 13, Seth, 10, and Eli, 8, moved from Arizona to Baton Rouge to be with her. They then packed up and moved with her to Vancouver. Shooting is expected to wrap up sometime in April.
"I brought the whole zoo with me, including the dog and the tutors," says Meyer. "I knew I couldn't be a producer and not have them there. So I thought I'd just go for it."
Not having to worry about or miss her family has allowed her to spend the time she needs on set. She talks about the production with the caveat that everything and anything about it can change.
Fans, says Meyer, can expect a surprising performance when Stewart transforms from human to vampire. "She's created a new character. I was really impressed. I've only really seen her as (the human) Bella, so to have her step up and change it in the right way — she didn't have to talk to me. She knew. She knows the character so well now. She has really good instincts, and she looks amazing."
Meyer says the first Breaking Dawn movie may end "when Bella opens her eyes as a vampire. That's the way it's been shot. They can still do it any other way, but I think that's the general idea. You kind of have to get there in the first film. That way you have all the time in the world to explore being a vampire and those exhilarating first moments."
It hasn't hit her yet
On the filming of the birth of Bella and Edward's baby, Renesmee, which in the novel is frightening and horrific, she says, "I've only seen a rough cut and there are pieces missing, but I don't feel like it's graphic. You're not seeing it, but you know what's happened. It's emotional. It doesn't feel horror-ish. There's blood, probably the most blood we've ever seen in the series. But everything's in flux; we'll see in the final cut."
With the second Breaking Dawn movie not out until 2012, Meyer's emotional connection to the Twilight world will be an intimate one for months to come. She's waiting for the moment when the finality of it hits.
"I don't know when it's going to get me," she says, "but I know it will, and at that point I'm going to be a sobbing mess on the floor."
Some of the contest winners are tearing up as they come down from the high of a very special weekend.
Pamela Atzin Martinez, 16, of Mexico City is sobbing after saying her final goodbye to Meyer.
"It's just such a dream come true," she says of her time with the author. "She has changed my life in so many ways. My father told me, 'Stephenie Meyer is not just the author of your favorite books, she's the author of many of the most amazing events of your life,' and it's so true."
USA Today I Source
Rob's interview with Elle Girl Russia - Scans & translation
We actually did an impossible mission – did an interview with our precious Robert Pattinson and didn’t ask him questions about vampires even once. We managed actually talk with him and not ask about blood, afterlife and Kristen Stewart. We’re in shock,
Elle Girl: Hi, Rob! Let’s talk about love.
Robert: Oh, again. (smiling) Ok, you can. What’s interesting about that?
EG: Your character in WFE fell in love from the first sight. Do you believe in love like that?
R: Of course
EG: Did it happen to you?
R: Million times. I actually think that most people fell in love at the moment when they saw their love for the first time.
EG: And how can you tell that you fall in love?
R: I can’t answer that. Really. I don’t know. You have very hard questions.
EG: Robert!
R: How can you describe love? If you love someone then you think that this person is the best in the world, don’t you? But if she doesn’t think that way about herself?? I think, the whole point to make her believe that she’s perfect, the most beautiful.
EG: In the movie your and Reese’s characters has a secret love. About you and your private life?
R: Oh, if it was me, I would do everything to make private life just for 2 people.You know, when I was 12, I asked a girl for a date for the 1st time. The next everybody was like: ‘Are you going out with her?’ And I was like: ‘Oh God’. I never talked to this girl ever.
EG: Is it easier for you now?
R: What private life with all these paparazzi around? They don’t care, they make money. You know, I hate being photographed. Even before all of this [fame] I hated it, even when my mom took pictures of me.
EG: And this man became an actor...
R: On a movie set I have nothing against the cameras. But other places...
EG: And what you’re gonna do to stop that?
R: I’m ready to shoot! *laughs*
EG: Are you tired of fans?
R: No, it’s all good, fans, love, of course, if it’s about me. But I feel like it’s all about character, not real Rob.
EG: But you’re so handsome, It’s pretty much enough to somebody to fall in love…
R: It’s kind of weird. Before Twilight I wasn’t offered the roles of guys like that.
EG: Was it hard to play more ‘human’ part in WFE?
R: No, actually.On the set I was really happy with what’s around me. For example, it was cool that you can sweat and play the role like that. On Twilight it was impossible, if your forehead sweated even a little bit, immediately 5 make-up artists there to fix it. It’s kind of a relief that it wasn’t like that on WFE.
EG: What about wild animals? Was it hard to work with them?
R: No, it was cool! If you’re working with elephant, for instance, and there’s some kind of chest cause the elephant threw it there, you have to react naturally. No one expects the episode to be perfect because animals can’t work with a script, It means that actors also can relax and improvise. And that’s very cool.
EG: Do you have pets at home?
R: Yeah? I have a dog now and very happy about it.
EG: How did you call it?
R: I haven’t decided yet, it’s from the shelter.He’s like, like, he looks like hyena
EG: Did you start to train it?
R: Yes. It’s very clever and obedient.
EG: Feels like you like animals more than humans?
R: I don’t know. I’m just lucky with four-legged friends. On the set I become really close with Tai, the elephant. She definitely has some kind of aura, anyone who was around her felt really peaceful. It’s really cool, to be around such a huge animal, which is so gentle at the same time.
EG: Was the circus that exciting for you when you were a child?
R: Not really. When I was there, I saw really stupid number where the clown died. I thought it was for real until I was like 21. My mom opened my eyes. *laughs*
EG: How you can relax?
R: I can’t wait for the flights. I can sleep there quietly.
EG: And what about your dream day off? What it’s like?
R: I’d probably watch films. Or played a game on my IPhone *laughs*. I can play it 16 hours in a row.
EG: What about sport?
R: On BD I was training really hard because I have shirtless scenes. I had to eat healthy food, go to the gym all the time, ride a bike everywhere and I liked it. When I finished these scenes, I relaxed and I don’t go to the gym at all. I can’t force myself.
EG: Any guilty pleasures?
R: M&M’s pretzels.
Elle Girl: Hi, Rob! Let’s talk about love.
Robert: Oh, again. (smiling) Ok, you can. What’s interesting about that?
EG: Your character in WFE fell in love from the first sight. Do you believe in love like that?
R: Of course
EG: Did it happen to you?
R: Million times. I actually think that most people fell in love at the moment when they saw their love for the first time.
EG: And how can you tell that you fall in love?
R: I can’t answer that. Really. I don’t know. You have very hard questions.
EG: Robert!
R: How can you describe love? If you love someone then you think that this person is the best in the world, don’t you? But if she doesn’t think that way about herself?? I think, the whole point to make her believe that she’s perfect, the most beautiful.
EG: In the movie your and Reese’s characters has a secret love. About you and your private life?
R: Oh, if it was me, I would do everything to make private life just for 2 people.You know, when I was 12, I asked a girl for a date for the 1st time. The next everybody was like: ‘Are you going out with her?’ And I was like: ‘Oh God’. I never talked to this girl ever.
EG: Is it easier for you now?
R: What private life with all these paparazzi around? They don’t care, they make money. You know, I hate being photographed. Even before all of this [fame] I hated it, even when my mom took pictures of me.
EG: And this man became an actor...
R: On a movie set I have nothing against the cameras. But other places...
EG: And what you’re gonna do to stop that?
R: I’m ready to shoot! *laughs*
EG: Are you tired of fans?
R: No, it’s all good, fans, love, of course, if it’s about me. But I feel like it’s all about character, not real Rob.
EG: But you’re so handsome, It’s pretty much enough to somebody to fall in love…
R: It’s kind of weird. Before Twilight I wasn’t offered the roles of guys like that.
EG: Was it hard to play more ‘human’ part in WFE?
R: No, actually.On the set I was really happy with what’s around me. For example, it was cool that you can sweat and play the role like that. On Twilight it was impossible, if your forehead sweated even a little bit, immediately 5 make-up artists there to fix it. It’s kind of a relief that it wasn’t like that on WFE.
EG: What about wild animals? Was it hard to work with them?
R: No, it was cool! If you’re working with elephant, for instance, and there’s some kind of chest cause the elephant threw it there, you have to react naturally. No one expects the episode to be perfect because animals can’t work with a script, It means that actors also can relax and improvise. And that’s very cool.
EG: Do you have pets at home?
R: Yeah? I have a dog now and very happy about it.
EG: How did you call it?
R: I haven’t decided yet, it’s from the shelter.He’s like, like, he looks like hyena
EG: Did you start to train it?
R: Yes. It’s very clever and obedient.
EG: Feels like you like animals more than humans?
R: I don’t know. I’m just lucky with four-legged friends. On the set I become really close with Tai, the elephant. She definitely has some kind of aura, anyone who was around her felt really peaceful. It’s really cool, to be around such a huge animal, which is so gentle at the same time.
EG: Was the circus that exciting for you when you were a child?
R: Not really. When I was there, I saw really stupid number where the clown died. I thought it was for real until I was like 21. My mom opened my eyes. *laughs*
EG: How you can relax?
R: I can’t wait for the flights. I can sleep there quietly.
EG: And what about your dream day off? What it’s like?
R: I’d probably watch films. Or played a game on my IPhone *laughs*. I can play it 16 hours in a row.
EG: What about sport?
R: On BD I was training really hard because I have shirtless scenes. I had to eat healthy food, go to the gym all the time, ride a bike everywhere and I liked it. When I finished these scenes, I relaxed and I don’t go to the gym at all. I can’t force myself.
EG: Any guilty pleasures?
R: M&M’s pretzels.
Stephenie Meyer praises Kristen’s human to vampire transformation
“She’s created a new character. I was really impressed,” says Meyer. “I’ve only really seen her as (the human) Bella so to have her step up and change it in the right way — she didn’t have to talk to me. She knew. She knows the character so well now. She has really good instincts and, she looks amazing.”
Fans, says Meyer, can expect a surprising performance when star Kristen Stewart transforms from human to vampire.
In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY’s Carol Memmott coming Thursday, Meyer also shares details on the wedding gown Kristen Stewart wears in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, she dishes about Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, and Meyer talks about the creatures – some watery, some dark – she hopes to write about next. Check back tomorrow for the whole story.
Tai's trainer, Gary Johnson, talks Water For Elephants, Robert, Tai & more
Johnson: Especially in this movie we’ve worked a lot. It was very exciting as well though. I loved everyone who worked on this movie. People were realy respectful and always friendly. The director Francis Lawrence was a real gentleman and did a great job in my opinion. He drove to our ranch in California a dozen times to watch the training and to spend time with Tai. That’s how he knew how to shoot the scenes with her later on.
How much time did Reese Witherspoon with Tai? The relationship between Marlena and Rosie is very important for the story right?
Johnson: Reese Witherspoon visited the ranch often to train with Tai, because she has some really physical scenes with her. She had to climb onto Tai, just how it is known from circuses when the girl sits on top of the elephant. Tai lay on her side and when she got up Reese had to learn to stand on her trunk. They had to train a few different options to climb on top then. In one scene Tai stands on her back legs and Reese directly beneath her. In another scene Tai does a headstand and Reese dances beneath her at the same time. That’s really complicated and we had to train those scenes with a choreographer. The timing had to be right. In another scene Reese stands on top of the elephant. Another time Tai sits on a base and stands on her back legs and Reese then climbs onto her back. They had to train that scene a very long time. Tai does things like that regularly and it’s part of her routine. She practices daily and a lot.
How difficult was that for Reese?
Johnson: She was extraordinary and told us she did gymnastics as a child. She grew up with animals and has always felt comfortable with them. All three main actors, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz were very impressive. We’re very lucky that we were able to work with them. They’re just incredible.
What are the most exciting scenes with Tai and Reese the audience will get to see?
I think my favourite scene is the last one in which Reese stands on Tai. That’s a very dramatic moment. Although she does a few different routines, this might be the most spectacular one. At one point she lies on Tai’s back and Tai dances with her all through the arena. That scene is very impressive as well. In another very funny scene Christoph Waltz (August) and Reese dance on a podest and Tai gets so jealous, she tips Christoph on the shoulder. Then she steals his hat, throws it on the ground and tramples on it. It’s like she wanted to say, “Let Reese be. She’s mine.” Rosie also seems to feel that Christoph’s role is not really a likeable one.
How hard and intensive was the training on the movie set?
Johnson: There were two trainers on set every day, my assistant Joanne Smith and I. Tai had to practice a lot of different routines and that meant a lot of work. We had a month for the initial preparation and after that we practices for three months, daily, to rehearse all the routines. In a particularly difficult scene Tai had to draw a plug out of the ground. Normally you use a plug on the ground to chain an elephant. In the movie, Rosie pulls the plug out of the ground, sneaks to a barrel filled with lemonade, drinks, sneaks back to her initial place along with the plug, pushes it back into the earth and pretends nothing ever happened. We had to practice a lot for that scene. Tai also had to lie down in a circus waggon and pretend that she was hurt. For this scene we needed a lot of time as well.
What about the scene where she runs away from the circus, gets to a city and destroys a lot of things there?
Johnson: In that scene Christoph Waltz is very angry at Rosie, because she sneaks to the nearest villages and eats the vegetables from the market. Rob (Jacob) has to search for her and get her back. For that scene we needed about 300 extras and a few gamesmanship for Tai. There was just too much going on there, children on bikes and a lot of people. In all that chaos Tai had to act and we couldn’t just stand in front of the camera and tell her what to do. She had to eat the corn for example. but not the potatoes. That was a really special command but she did great. As an award she got an apple, a carrot and a little candy. Elephants love that, but Tais favourite sweets are “Jelly Beans”. Sometimes we even clap her on the shoulder and tell her that she did well. She understands that as well.
In the movie we fall in love with Rosie. How intelligent and emotional are elephants?
Johnson: I don’t think that Tai really knows that she’s acting. She does know though that something will happen, cause she’s done that before already. She understands what it means when the director shouts “action” or “cut”. We’ve trained her to stop anything she does as soon as the director shouts “cut”.
How did Robert Pattinson interact and work with Tai?
Johnson: Robert has a few close-ups with her and Tai thought him to be very likeable the first time she saw him. When Rosie is hurt he takes care of her. Robert never got loud with her and their relationship was adorable and easygoing. I think she liked him a lot.
How did you shot the key scenes in which August isn’t exactly nice to Rosie?
Johnson: That scene was manipulated with CGI effects in post production. The wounds which can be seen on Rosie are not real. They’ve been put on with make-up. When Christoph shot the scene in which he was supposed to hit her with a stick, the stick was just about 25 cm long. He did the movement but never touched her.
That means that during those extremely emotional scenes Tai was never in danger and always really happy?
Johnson: Of course Tai was always safe and we always took care of her. Nobody would ever allow an animal to get hurt. Nobody will ever hurt our elephants. But on screen that emotion is shown pretty well, simply because Chrstoph is a great actor. When he acts his voice gets higher which makes him sound dangerous. Tai’s eyes were very responsive to that. It can be seen in the movie. She looks at him as if she wanted to say, “Hey, what are you doing with me?”. That’s exactly what she has to do for the role as well.
Reese Witherspooon told us that she was very emotional on Tai’s last day on set because she was really close to her. Was that a very emotional moment for everyone?
Johnson: She cried and was very sad. They had a really strong relationship and Rob had to fight with tears as well. Of couse you can’t compare animals and human beings but I think that Tai and other elephants can develop a very strong relationship to humans as well – especially ours since they’re constantly learning and working with humans. We take them to shoot movies, take them to the beach or the forest and they have a lot of fun. Our relationships are based on mutual trust. Working with Tai was very touching and emotional for Reese, Rob and Christoph. Watching Reese and Tai work one could see that they had a special bond.
How much fun did Tai have while working?
Johnson: I think she had a lot of fun while working on “Water for Elephants”. Elephants are built for walking, moving a lot and they’re very intelligent. They need phsyical and mental challenges.
The movie is going to be suspenseful and emotional. Do you think that people will learn a lot about elephants and how extraordinary they are?
Johnson: I think that the movie will raise awareness, just because the story is really exciting and because the younger generation will love to see Rob and Reese together. I think the audience will see how intelligent elephants are. We really hope we can raise awareness about the animals that are kept captive and also the ones in the wilderness
Rob talks about about 'Bel Ami' with Total Film
Robert Pattinson admits that Bel Ami is still in editing because studio honchos are worried about alienating audiences used to his goody-two-shoes persona in the Twilight franchise.
RPattz plays the titular Bel Ami in an adaptation of Maupassant's classic novel about a 19th century womanising, social-climbing journalist who sleeps his way round Paris.
Filming in the UK and Budapest opposite leading ladies Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Kristen Scott Thomas wrapped in spring 2010 and was originally slated for a Christmas release. It currently has no confirmed opening date.
"We were really true to the book and because the guy is basically a shit who wins everything at the end it’s really difficult to market it – especially with me in it," Pattinson tells TF exclusively.
"Everyone’s worried that everyone’s going to be thinking, ‘Oh I want him to be nice, he’s got to be nice to all the ladies’."
Bel Ami, though, is an unrepentant cad. "I know," laughs the Water For Elephants star, "But that was fun!"
For more on Robert Pattinson and Water For Elephants check out the latest issue of Total Film, out 14 April.
RPattz plays the titular Bel Ami in an adaptation of Maupassant's classic novel about a 19th century womanising, social-climbing journalist who sleeps his way round Paris.
Filming in the UK and Budapest opposite leading ladies Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Kristen Scott Thomas wrapped in spring 2010 and was originally slated for a Christmas release. It currently has no confirmed opening date.
"We were really true to the book and because the guy is basically a shit who wins everything at the end it’s really difficult to market it – especially with me in it," Pattinson tells TF exclusively.
"Everyone’s worried that everyone’s going to be thinking, ‘Oh I want him to be nice, he’s got to be nice to all the ladies’."
Bel Ami, though, is an unrepentant cad. "I know," laughs the Water For Elephants star, "But that was fun!"
For more on Robert Pattinson and Water For Elephants check out the latest issue of Total Film, out 14 April.
Rob's full Empire Magazine interview (scans)
Monday July 19, 2010. Empire is in LA, on the backlot of 20th Century Fox. Behind the studio's towering HQ - Better known as die hard's Nakatomi Plaza - in blazing sunshine. Today, we are lucky enough to witness one of the biggest street scenes filmed here since acres of the company's real estate were sold off in 1961 to foot the runaway costs of it's epic Cleopatra.
The cobbled streets are teeming with extras, all dressed in 1930s city mode - frills and brollies for the women, boots and braces for the boys - and there's a palpable air of excitement. Which is understandable, because, for once in Hollywood, the circus really is coming to town.
At the end of a salvo of jugglers, clowns and acrobats lumblers an elephant, balancing Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon, one of the town's most bankable actresses, on it's head. Dressed in a striking ringmaster's outfit, Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterd's unforgettable villain, theatrically parades her. And just out of our sightline, in a full chino combo, Robert Pattinson, Twilight icon and global superstar, is bringing up the rear. This, Empire thinks, this is the magic of the movies!
Thursday February 17, 2011. Empire is in Fox's Little Theatre, a short walk from the street corner where this lavish, no-expense-spared scene was shot. Originally, we were only supposed to see a few scenes from the film in question - Water For Elephants, a glossy adaptation of Sara Gruen's bestseller - but now we're seeing the whole movie! The film unfolds and Empire breathlessly awaits the scene. OUR SCENE! And waits... and waits... and waits. Then suddenly, after a good 80 minutes at least, it whizzes by. In the middle of a montage. For all of, what, ten seconds.
Friday February 18, 2011. Empire sits in the Four Seasons hotel with Pattinson. He, too, only recently noticed this, while doing some additional voice recording for the movie.
"I was like 'Oh,'" he says, his shoulders falling for comic effect. He sighs, in a small voice, "I really liked that scene..."
By rights, Pattinson shouldn't even be here. He, more then anyone, knows the dangers of the editing process, having been snipped completely from his very first movie (more on that later). But instead, thanks to a guilty conscience, a tax bill and a book he'd never heard of, the Barnes-born actor is, at just 24, one of the biggest deals on the planet. The way he tells it, he just muddled his way through. He even says he came to star in Water For Elephants, his biggest gamble yet, by chance.
Although he plays a character named Jacob, this period epic couldn't be further removed from the Twilight films that made him a most unlikely pin-up. As the undead Edward Cullen, Pattinson set teen pulses racing, but here, as a young veterinarian tossed out of medical school after the death of his parents, he plays a much more orthodox Hollywood heartthrob. Joining the Benzini Brothers' circus, led by the mercurial August Rosenbluth (Waltz), Jacob begins to see the harsh realities of life on the road in Depression-era America - all the while getting closer to the ringmaster's beautiful wife, horse rider and acrobat Marlena (Witherspoon), who's dominated by August with a whip hand.
For any other actor, such a role would be part of a distinct gameplan, a decision to ratchet things up a notch, embrace the limelight, go Hollywood. Pattinson, though, claims this was not the case. "It's actually a cheaper film that ant of the Twilight movies," he says softly, "so it wasn't that massive a budget, it just looks like it was. But it seems so big, it does seem like a step, or something. It's weird, though. When I first read the script - because I didn't have that many lines - I just thought, 'Oh, okay, I get it: I'm in the eyes of the audience. It's going to be a big spectacle movie that isn't solely resting on my shoulders...'" He laughs. "So I was very relaxed about it, going in."
So he didn't realise he'd be carrying the whole movie?!
"I only realised about halfway through," he grins. "I was working every single day. Reese was hardly ever in, and Christoph only came in sporadically *. I was like, 'how did this happen?!'"
*Attention, Hollywood! Tongue-in-cheek British humour alert number one! In fairness to Waltz and witherspoon, Pattinson is talking subjectively about their respective shooting schedules within a main shoot that lasted from May 20 to August 4, 2010.
How indeed? At a time when most stars his age have become insufferable, Pattinson is friendly, likable and genuinely humble. The reddish hair is noticeably Edward's - he has flown straight from the set of Breaking Dawn in Baton Rouge - but the clothes are nondescript, perhaps for security reasons rather than fashion (Of the fan hysteria that follows him, he says this, somewhat cryptically: "I know what situations will provoke it now, so I just avoid doing those things.")
But this is an actor who isn't about to let his ego run riot just yet. The last time Pattinson worked with Witherspoon, on Mira Nair's 2004 adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, he told everyone who'd listen about his Hollywood break - and then ended up on the cutting-room floor. Even though he was playing the star's son.
"I had no idea," he laughs. "I went to a screening and it was very embarrassing, because my best friend played the son of the other main couple, and his scene was still in. His was almost adjacent to mine. So I was looking at his scene, thinking 'Hmm, pretty good,' waiting for mine." But it wasn't there. In it's place, there was "a big, happy wedding". In India. "Which wasn't in the book." he notes, deadpan (he has a lovely, dry sense of humour).
Did they ever say why?
"I think because it was the last scene, and they thought it was too depressing," he shrugs. "But it was quite funny, really. I ended up getting Harry Potter because the casting director felt so guilty that she forgot to tell me. I think I was the first person seen for it. Nowadays, I'm working all the time. But before that... I mean, in my career before Twilight, whatever job I got, that was the job I did. I never turned down a thing. They weren't even lead parts. Anything. Just random little things. And I liked doing it, on that level. I survived off the money for Harry Potter for, like, three years. I spent three years getting drunk **. And just when I was about to go broke, I got Twilight."
**Tongue-in-cheek British humour alert number two! This is A Joke.
Pattinson admits that, had it not been for the indie drama Little Ashes, in which he played surrealist artist Salvador DalÃ, we might even have lost him to music. "All my friends were doing music and just starting to get contracts," he recalls. "We were all playing in the same little group of people. So I was going to start doing that, and then I got offered Little ashes, out of the blue. At first, I thought it was just gonna be two months' vacation in Spain, but it ended up being really, really hard. It was the first job I'd really researched, and I'd only just started to find some satisfaction in acting."
And after that? "Well, then I got Twilight," he grins. "I finished Little Ashes and went to LA because I really, really needed money! I had this big tax bill, and I was completely broke. But it had given me a different perspective. I talked to people in auditions differently, whereas before I just went in going, 'Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing,' and I didn't really care."
Pattinson looks back on those days with amusement rather than embarrassment. "I really enjoyed everything," he says. "When you're starting out, you don't really know how to..." He changes tack, turning a negative into a positive. "I mean, you've gotta learn how to do things. Every job i did, especially before Twilight, I'd be all out in it - and having no idea which kind of direction to go in! I really wanted to see where my line was. I didn't know what I was doing at all."
He didn't train as an actor, so how did he learn? Was it a question of listening to the director? He smiles. "I've only just started accepting what directors tell me to do! I used to think that, say, where I had to do a big emotional scene, because of everything I'd read about actors when I was younger, I'd have to do it for real. So I'd be hyping myself up for three days beforehand. Like, I did this Viking movie (released theatrically in the UK as Sword Of Xanten) when I was 17, and there was all this fighting stuff. I had to kill this guy who killed my brother."he laughs. "I sat there going crazy for the entire day. It actually got to the point where I had the sword in my hand, about to whip it out and kill the guy, and the director came over and said 'Listen, you can't do it. You've got the red mist...' I was like, "WHAAAAT?'
"It's funny, that," he muses. "You don't understand when you first start doing it, how to get to certain places. Because you don't want to feel like you're faking it. But then you find out later that the best people, most of the time, are faking it. And that's when they do their best work."
After Twilight, the rest is history. And even that, he says, was sort of a fluke: when he landed the part, he genuinely had no idea how life-changing it would be. "No-one believes me about this. You couldn't buy the books in England. And I only knew one person who'd read then, who was my mum's friend's daughter, who lived in New York. It just seemed like it was one of those 'young adult' class reader things. I had no idea what it was about. So I went over there and I didn't know what to make of it at all. But I'd seen Into The Wild, and I thought Kristen (Stewart) was really good in it. They said, 'Oh, that's the girl playing Bella.' And I was like 'Shit, she's actually good!' So I did a reading with her, and she was really impressive."
"I didn't really know how to play it," he continues, "because I thought it was kind of a teen thing - which it did end up being - but I thought at the time, with Catherine Hardwicke and Kristen, it was going to be an indie movie. It seemed really interesting; a teen vampire movie that was going to be like Thirteen (Hardwicke's debut movie) and really serious. I had no idea it was going to be this big thing that you'd get on Burger King hats."
Empire takes it that this has actually happened? "Yes," he grins. "I think you can even get an Edward burger! But it doesn't really make an enormous amount of difference. Everyone always thinks, 'Oh, well, you can do anything you want now.' but there's nothing out there. There's hardly anything. Also, you've got to fit into the part. I mean, it's not like I'm going to play the Queen!"
After the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2, Pattinson says there'll definitely be no more Edward Cullen. his next film, sensual period thriller Bel Ami, recently wrapped, and then he starts work on Cronenberg's new thriller, Cosmopolis. You'd think he might be blasé about that, but no. "I'm just astonished that I've been cast," he marvels. "I'd read the script before and thought, 'Wow, this is insane. But insane and difficult.' And then, out of nowhere, my agent said, "Do you want to do it?'"
Is this something of a dream come true, then? "I never thought about working with Cronenberg," he reflects, "but I've always loved his movies. It just never came into my head that there would be an opportunity. Y'know, there are so few auteur's left. The one thing that pisses me off about working in films is when you start a project and then, suddenly, two days before you start, there's a massive rewrite to make an R-rated movie into something that's PG-13, and it's a totally different story. As soon as that line's been crossed, you know you're not making a movie anymore. You're making a...a... fridge magnet. It's nothing.
"But with people like Cronenberg you know that, no matter what, there will be a movie at the end, and it will be solid and self-contained, and it's not made for any other reason than it being a movie. and however ridiculous it is, that's so hard to find! There's a few people like this. Like Jaques Audiard, who made A Prophet. He's never made a film that isn't entirely his own."
This informed, intelligent and incisive side of Robert Pattinson might come as a surprise to those expecting an airhead, boy-model bimbo. So Empire puts him on the spot somewhat and asks what he would say to people who have a precognition about him from Twilight, and wanted to know why they should go to see Water For Elephants.
"I don't know," he says, suddenly a little shyer. "Hopefully they'll think it's a good movie. I don't know what it says about me... But I have a feeling that a lot of people will like it. I don't think a lot of movies coming out are anything like it, and when I was working on the film it didn't feel like anything else that was being made. So hopefully it will... it will... satiate something in people."
And it's better that having a rapping career, which Empire believes very almost happened...?
He nods. "It's definitely better than that."
Water For Elephants is out on May 5 and will be reviewed in the next issue.
The cobbled streets are teeming with extras, all dressed in 1930s city mode - frills and brollies for the women, boots and braces for the boys - and there's a palpable air of excitement. Which is understandable, because, for once in Hollywood, the circus really is coming to town.
At the end of a salvo of jugglers, clowns and acrobats lumblers an elephant, balancing Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon, one of the town's most bankable actresses, on it's head. Dressed in a striking ringmaster's outfit, Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterd's unforgettable villain, theatrically parades her. And just out of our sightline, in a full chino combo, Robert Pattinson, Twilight icon and global superstar, is bringing up the rear. This, Empire thinks, this is the magic of the movies!
Thursday February 17, 2011. Empire is in Fox's Little Theatre, a short walk from the street corner where this lavish, no-expense-spared scene was shot. Originally, we were only supposed to see a few scenes from the film in question - Water For Elephants, a glossy adaptation of Sara Gruen's bestseller - but now we're seeing the whole movie! The film unfolds and Empire breathlessly awaits the scene. OUR SCENE! And waits... and waits... and waits. Then suddenly, after a good 80 minutes at least, it whizzes by. In the middle of a montage. For all of, what, ten seconds.
Friday February 18, 2011. Empire sits in the Four Seasons hotel with Pattinson. He, too, only recently noticed this, while doing some additional voice recording for the movie.
"I was like 'Oh,'" he says, his shoulders falling for comic effect. He sighs, in a small voice, "I really liked that scene..."
By rights, Pattinson shouldn't even be here. He, more then anyone, knows the dangers of the editing process, having been snipped completely from his very first movie (more on that later). But instead, thanks to a guilty conscience, a tax bill and a book he'd never heard of, the Barnes-born actor is, at just 24, one of the biggest deals on the planet. The way he tells it, he just muddled his way through. He even says he came to star in Water For Elephants, his biggest gamble yet, by chance.
Although he plays a character named Jacob, this period epic couldn't be further removed from the Twilight films that made him a most unlikely pin-up. As the undead Edward Cullen, Pattinson set teen pulses racing, but here, as a young veterinarian tossed out of medical school after the death of his parents, he plays a much more orthodox Hollywood heartthrob. Joining the Benzini Brothers' circus, led by the mercurial August Rosenbluth (Waltz), Jacob begins to see the harsh realities of life on the road in Depression-era America - all the while getting closer to the ringmaster's beautiful wife, horse rider and acrobat Marlena (Witherspoon), who's dominated by August with a whip hand.
For any other actor, such a role would be part of a distinct gameplan, a decision to ratchet things up a notch, embrace the limelight, go Hollywood. Pattinson, though, claims this was not the case. "It's actually a cheaper film that ant of the Twilight movies," he says softly, "so it wasn't that massive a budget, it just looks like it was. But it seems so big, it does seem like a step, or something. It's weird, though. When I first read the script - because I didn't have that many lines - I just thought, 'Oh, okay, I get it: I'm in the eyes of the audience. It's going to be a big spectacle movie that isn't solely resting on my shoulders...'" He laughs. "So I was very relaxed about it, going in."
So he didn't realise he'd be carrying the whole movie?!
"I only realised about halfway through," he grins. "I was working every single day. Reese was hardly ever in, and Christoph only came in sporadically *. I was like, 'how did this happen?!'"
*Attention, Hollywood! Tongue-in-cheek British humour alert number one! In fairness to Waltz and witherspoon, Pattinson is talking subjectively about their respective shooting schedules within a main shoot that lasted from May 20 to August 4, 2010.
How indeed? At a time when most stars his age have become insufferable, Pattinson is friendly, likable and genuinely humble. The reddish hair is noticeably Edward's - he has flown straight from the set of Breaking Dawn in Baton Rouge - but the clothes are nondescript, perhaps for security reasons rather than fashion (Of the fan hysteria that follows him, he says this, somewhat cryptically: "I know what situations will provoke it now, so I just avoid doing those things.")
But this is an actor who isn't about to let his ego run riot just yet. The last time Pattinson worked with Witherspoon, on Mira Nair's 2004 adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, he told everyone who'd listen about his Hollywood break - and then ended up on the cutting-room floor. Even though he was playing the star's son.
"I had no idea," he laughs. "I went to a screening and it was very embarrassing, because my best friend played the son of the other main couple, and his scene was still in. His was almost adjacent to mine. So I was looking at his scene, thinking 'Hmm, pretty good,' waiting for mine." But it wasn't there. In it's place, there was "a big, happy wedding". In India. "Which wasn't in the book." he notes, deadpan (he has a lovely, dry sense of humour).
Did they ever say why?
"I think because it was the last scene, and they thought it was too depressing," he shrugs. "But it was quite funny, really. I ended up getting Harry Potter because the casting director felt so guilty that she forgot to tell me. I think I was the first person seen for it. Nowadays, I'm working all the time. But before that... I mean, in my career before Twilight, whatever job I got, that was the job I did. I never turned down a thing. They weren't even lead parts. Anything. Just random little things. And I liked doing it, on that level. I survived off the money for Harry Potter for, like, three years. I spent three years getting drunk **. And just when I was about to go broke, I got Twilight."
**Tongue-in-cheek British humour alert number two! This is A Joke.
Pattinson admits that, had it not been for the indie drama Little Ashes, in which he played surrealist artist Salvador DalÃ, we might even have lost him to music. "All my friends were doing music and just starting to get contracts," he recalls. "We were all playing in the same little group of people. So I was going to start doing that, and then I got offered Little ashes, out of the blue. At first, I thought it was just gonna be two months' vacation in Spain, but it ended up being really, really hard. It was the first job I'd really researched, and I'd only just started to find some satisfaction in acting."
And after that? "Well, then I got Twilight," he grins. "I finished Little Ashes and went to LA because I really, really needed money! I had this big tax bill, and I was completely broke. But it had given me a different perspective. I talked to people in auditions differently, whereas before I just went in going, 'Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing,' and I didn't really care."
Pattinson looks back on those days with amusement rather than embarrassment. "I really enjoyed everything," he says. "When you're starting out, you don't really know how to..." He changes tack, turning a negative into a positive. "I mean, you've gotta learn how to do things. Every job i did, especially before Twilight, I'd be all out in it - and having no idea which kind of direction to go in! I really wanted to see where my line was. I didn't know what I was doing at all."
He didn't train as an actor, so how did he learn? Was it a question of listening to the director? He smiles. "I've only just started accepting what directors tell me to do! I used to think that, say, where I had to do a big emotional scene, because of everything I'd read about actors when I was younger, I'd have to do it for real. So I'd be hyping myself up for three days beforehand. Like, I did this Viking movie (released theatrically in the UK as Sword Of Xanten) when I was 17, and there was all this fighting stuff. I had to kill this guy who killed my brother."he laughs. "I sat there going crazy for the entire day. It actually got to the point where I had the sword in my hand, about to whip it out and kill the guy, and the director came over and said 'Listen, you can't do it. You've got the red mist...' I was like, "WHAAAAT?'
"It's funny, that," he muses. "You don't understand when you first start doing it, how to get to certain places. Because you don't want to feel like you're faking it. But then you find out later that the best people, most of the time, are faking it. And that's when they do their best work."
After Twilight, the rest is history. And even that, he says, was sort of a fluke: when he landed the part, he genuinely had no idea how life-changing it would be. "No-one believes me about this. You couldn't buy the books in England. And I only knew one person who'd read then, who was my mum's friend's daughter, who lived in New York. It just seemed like it was one of those 'young adult' class reader things. I had no idea what it was about. So I went over there and I didn't know what to make of it at all. But I'd seen Into The Wild, and I thought Kristen (Stewart) was really good in it. They said, 'Oh, that's the girl playing Bella.' And I was like 'Shit, she's actually good!' So I did a reading with her, and she was really impressive."
"I didn't really know how to play it," he continues, "because I thought it was kind of a teen thing - which it did end up being - but I thought at the time, with Catherine Hardwicke and Kristen, it was going to be an indie movie. It seemed really interesting; a teen vampire movie that was going to be like Thirteen (Hardwicke's debut movie) and really serious. I had no idea it was going to be this big thing that you'd get on Burger King hats."
Empire takes it that this has actually happened? "Yes," he grins. "I think you can even get an Edward burger! But it doesn't really make an enormous amount of difference. Everyone always thinks, 'Oh, well, you can do anything you want now.' but there's nothing out there. There's hardly anything. Also, you've got to fit into the part. I mean, it's not like I'm going to play the Queen!"
After the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2, Pattinson says there'll definitely be no more Edward Cullen. his next film, sensual period thriller Bel Ami, recently wrapped, and then he starts work on Cronenberg's new thriller, Cosmopolis. You'd think he might be blasé about that, but no. "I'm just astonished that I've been cast," he marvels. "I'd read the script before and thought, 'Wow, this is insane. But insane and difficult.' And then, out of nowhere, my agent said, "Do you want to do it?'"
Is this something of a dream come true, then? "I never thought about working with Cronenberg," he reflects, "but I've always loved his movies. It just never came into my head that there would be an opportunity. Y'know, there are so few auteur's left. The one thing that pisses me off about working in films is when you start a project and then, suddenly, two days before you start, there's a massive rewrite to make an R-rated movie into something that's PG-13, and it's a totally different story. As soon as that line's been crossed, you know you're not making a movie anymore. You're making a...a... fridge magnet. It's nothing.
"But with people like Cronenberg you know that, no matter what, there will be a movie at the end, and it will be solid and self-contained, and it's not made for any other reason than it being a movie. and however ridiculous it is, that's so hard to find! There's a few people like this. Like Jaques Audiard, who made A Prophet. He's never made a film that isn't entirely his own."
This informed, intelligent and incisive side of Robert Pattinson might come as a surprise to those expecting an airhead, boy-model bimbo. So Empire puts him on the spot somewhat and asks what he would say to people who have a precognition about him from Twilight, and wanted to know why they should go to see Water For Elephants.
"I don't know," he says, suddenly a little shyer. "Hopefully they'll think it's a good movie. I don't know what it says about me... But I have a feeling that a lot of people will like it. I don't think a lot of movies coming out are anything like it, and when I was working on the film it didn't feel like anything else that was being made. So hopefully it will... it will... satiate something in people."
And it's better that having a rapping career, which Empire believes very almost happened...?
He nods. "It's definitely better than that."
Water For Elephants is out on May 5 and will be reviewed in the next issue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)