*NEW* HQ pics The Summer House + interview Director Daisy Gili

The only Robert Pat­tin­son project most peo­ple know from his pre-“Twilight” days is his small role in “Harry Pot­ter and the Gob­let of Fire” as Cedric Dig­gory, but as his pop­u­lar­ity has grown, more of his ear­lier projects are get­ting wide release. The lat­est of those is the short film “The Sum­mer House,” which was filmed for a week back in the sum­mer of 2006, but is only hit­ting film fes­ti­vals and iTunes this year. You can watch the trailer here.

First-time direc­tor Daisy Gills said she actu­ally cast Rob because she was rec­om­mended him by Camp­bell Mitchell, who had worked on props for another of his early projects, “The Haunted Airman.”

“He said, this guy is amaz­ing, and he’s really nice, and I think he’d be really up for work­ing on a short film,” Gills told MTV News. “I saw a pic­ture of him and I thought, he’s fantastic.”

Up until that point, Rob’s costar Talu­lah Riley was best known for her work in Joe Wright’s “Pride & Prej­u­dice,” and hadn’t yet starred in her big hit, “Pirate Radio” (known as “The Boat That Rocked” in the UK). Gills hired a cast direc­tor to find her an actress to play the short’s main char­ac­ter, Jane, and thought Talu­lah was the per­fect fit.

“Talu­lah was amaz­ing. The thing that I found most amaz­ing about her was her ver­sa­til­ity. You could give her a small amount of direc­tion, and she would deliver a com­pletely dif­fer­ent but equally won­der­ful per­for­mance. I was like, wow,” said Gills.

But it was the chem­istry between the two that really helped the film work. At 13 min­utes in length, “The Sum­mer House” fol­lows Jane as she flees to France to stay with her aunt after her boyfriend Richard (Rob) dumps her for another girl. How­ever, he fol­lows her to the sum­mer house to try to win her back and, on the night of the moon land­ing, tries to make his move. The result of his efforts helps Jane real­ize that — in Gills’ words — love isn’t black and white.

It was nec­es­sary to Gills to have the film set on the night of the moon land­ing because she felt every­one remem­bers where they were the night man landed on the moon, but the night was impor­tant for Jane because she real­ized that love was dif­fer­ent and more com­pli­cated than she had always imag­ined. “I think you needed [some­thing as momen­tous as] the moon land­ing to kind of help the slight­ness of the story become stronger,” she said.

Gills felt the char­ac­ter of Richard was a strug­gle for Rob, because he had to play some­one so dif­fer­ent from him­self. “He’s quite a gen­tle per­son. He’s a really nice per­son. And he has to play quite a not very nice char­ac­ter, and I think he strug­gled with that,” Gills said. “He wasn’t play­ing a role that he was par­tic­u­larly com­fort­able with, but he still man­ages to have a real pres­ence: brood­ing, slightly men­ac­ing. You’re never quite sure whether he wants her because he wants to have sex with her or because he loves her. And I think he deliv­ers that brilliantly.”

After watch­ing the short, we have to agree with her on Rob’s per­for­mance, and “Twi­light” fans will see a lit­tle bit of what would become Edward Cullen in Rob’s por­trayal of Richard. But, beyond the great act­ing, the set and cos­tume design were our favorite parts of the film. The short is based on a short story of the same name, and Gills said they were able to film for free in the sum­mer house that inspired the story.

The dresses are vin­tage 1960s as well because Gills bor­rowed them from her mother, though the gor­geous green dress Talu­lah wears at the end was a cre­ation of their cos­tume designer. The pearls she wears at the end of the film were bor­rowed by the French actress, Mar­i­anne Borgo, who plays her aunt in the film, just like Jane would have bor­rowed them from her aunt in the film.

“The Sum­mer House” had its pre­miere at the Toronto Film Fes­ti­val ear­lier this year, and is going to be offered for $1.99 on iTunes start­ing July 13 by Shorts Inter­na­tional. It will next be shown at the Rushes Soho Short Film Fes­ti­val later this month. But for any­one hop­ing to catch a sight of Rob pro­mot­ing the short, Gills said she feels chances are slim. Many things have changed in the life of Robert Pat­tin­son since he per­formed as Richard, and now he is much harder to get in con­tact with. In fact, Gills doesn’t even know if he’s seen the film, though she knows many of his fans want to.

“A whole vari­ety of peo­ple are really inter­ested, and I hope that they’ll enjoy what they see. I hope they won’t be dis­ap­pointed that there isn’t more of him, if you know what I mean,” she said. “And I hope he enjoys it too! I’ve not heard back from him about it. I think his agent saw.”
source via RPLife via ToR