Get In The Limo With Robert Pattinson: Fascinating Behind-the-Scenes on the Cosmopolis Set
Two new behind-the-scenes Cosmopolis clips have been released along with interviews with the film’s leading man, Robert Pattinson, and director David Cronenberg.
Based on Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name, Cosmopolis follows 24 eventful and disturbing hours in the life of billionaire, financier Eric Packer.
Pursued by an anonymous assassin and a creamed pie-fixated stalker, Packer’s surreal journey sees him confront his fears, obsessions and a search for meaning, in the intentionally, absurd context of a white limo.
Selected for competition at the recent Cannes Film Festival, Cosmopolis has been both criticized and praised by critics.
The majority of reviews, however, heaped praise on Pattinson’s performance and the film.
And if reaction at recent premieres and Q and A’s in Lisbon, Paris, Berlin and a screening in London are anything to go by – it’s clear the film is eagerly anticipated by both Pattinson and Cronenberg fans.
In the first clip:
Pattinson talks about his first reaction to the Cosmopolis script.Even though he was interested, the Brit actor says that at the time, “I was doubting myself quite a lot,” and thought “I’d never get offered something like that.”
When the call did come a year later in 2011 offering him the lead role (after Colin Farrell had pulled out), Pattinson admits “I had no idea how I was going to play it […] but it seemed like a no-brainer to do it.”
Cronenberg, known to millions for hits like (The Fly, A History of Violence, and more genre material like Scanners, eXistenZ and Naked Lunch), also talks about why he filmed Cosmopolis in Toronto, rather than New York where DeLillo’s book is set.
Even though DeLillo’s book was written in 2001 (published 2003) it contains scenarios that echo the 2008 global financial meltdown and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Referring to this uncanny symmetry with real-life events, Cronenberg says,“Is it [Cosmopolis] really about New York or is it more about […] the world of financing in general?”
In the second clip:
Cronenberg jokes that he asked the cast to watch Das Boot (1981) and Lebanon (2009) – the first film was set on a submarine, the second in a tank – so they’d get used to the idea of working in a confined space.
Oddly enough, Pattinson reveals he actually liked being in the limo.
“I would literally have been going completely loopy” says the actor, if he’d been moving around different sets while filming. “Just having to stay in the seat the whole time […] it forces you to behave a certain way.”
Cosmopolis stars Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamatti, Juliet Binoche, Mathieu Almaric, Sarah Gadon, Samantha Morton, Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Patricia McKenzie and Kevin Durand. Rated R, the film opens in Canada on June 8, in the UK on June 15 and late summer in the U.S.
