#MTTS -New Italian Poster of "Maps to the Stars" + Still

#MTTS Maps to the Stars - New poster/ Adler Entertainment

 Poster: Source: Adler_Ent Via RPattinsonItaly| RobPattMoms | Still Via Gossipgyal

(YT Video) David Cronenberg Talks Maps to the Stars #CDNScreen14 Awards

Photo| YT Video:spunk_ransom

(Full Scans) David Cronenberg interview with Toronto Life: mentions Rob, #MTTS, #Cosmopolis

Tnxs @Gossipgyal

"'Maps To The Stars" "Cronenberg is currently putting the Final Touches"

MetroNews Although Cronenberg has become better known for intense thrillers of late, he sees clear themes that persist to this day. (In his work)

“The changes are more in terms of genre, of category,” says Cronenberg, who is currently putting the final touches on his upcoming feature “Maps to the Stars,” starring Robert Pattinson.

“They all have certain things that relate — the body consciousness, the importance of the human body as the main fact of human existence and so on. This is my so-called philosophy, it’s my understanding of what it is to be a human being and that underlies all the films.”

And although it’s been over a decade since he’s made a horror or sci-fi film, he denies having put those genres behind him. Full interview at source.

Via | Pattinson_AW

*eOne will also show buyers first footage in the form of promos for David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars and Matt Shakman’s Cut Bank. (Screendaily)

via Gossipgyal

(Video) Olivia Williams Interview on Rob, David Cronenberg #MTTS

“Talking about great directors, I believe you are working with David Cronenberg on Maps To The Stars- can you  talk a little about that- such an astonishing talent, of course…”

“He is an extraordinary man. You might think from his body of work that he might be a slightly sinister figure that you wouldn’t want to be left alone in a room with but actually, he is charming, funny and an artist when he works and he has surrounded himself with this amazing crew.  And Bruce Weber’ script, it is so devastating, and funny and sick and horrific and hilarious, I’m very excited about this film.

Asked about working with the young actor Robert Pattinson:] “I wish I had worked with him, we did not actually have a scene together. We had one very embarrassing half-hour in the makeup trailer when I persuaded  him to sign my daughter’s [book] copy of Harry Potter. This was the extent of our acquaintance, but, I am a fan. He is as devastatingly beautiful in person as he is on film. “

Source Via RobPattzBrasil| MTTSFilm_blog

New/Old Pictures Rob & David Cronenberg From "Cosmopolis" Promo #Cannes - May 2012

"Robert Pattinson en duplex avec Laurent Delahousse pour le 20h de France 2"

Source Tnxs Pattinson_AW | Rplife

David Cronenberg talks about Cosmopolis and "Maps to the Stars"

 

David Cronenberg's interview with Movieline/Via

The Blu-ray release of Cosmopolis is coming out in the heart of Oscar-campaign season. I get the sense it doesn't bug you too much that this film isn't being discussed more as a contender.
Yes. Every year I try to be as disconnected as possible. This year it's been very easy because we haven't been nominated for any awards. It's not sour grapes, it's not compensation; it's a relief. It's very easy to get caught up in it if you are nominated. The people who are releasing the movie get excited, they want you to do more, and you understand it because the awards can maybe get more people to see the film. This, on its face, is a good thing. However, it is all bullshit, it is all annoying and it is all very problematical. But it gives people stuff to write about, gives structure, we understand. But I won't be watching any of the awards shows.

End of the year lists, though — Cosmopolis did end up placing second in Cahiers du Cinema's top ten of the year.
Yes and on Sight and Sound's list, as well.

So the snooty-pants Euros are digging the movie. And, it'll no doubt end up somewhere on my top 20, I think. [Note: it came in at #12.]
If I gave you money would you put it higher?

No. Well?
Depends how much money. C'mon, let's talk. A hundred grand goes a long way.

Would you give me a hundred grand to write that Cosmopolis is the best movie of the year?
No! [Laughs.] But it's a thought.

[...] Sorry, so... Cosmopolis on Blu-ray. Special deleted scenes on here?
I'm usually reluctant to include deleted scenes. They're deleted for a reason. I like the the magic. On A History of Violence I included one or two because they were unusual, but that's the only time I've done that. On the other hand, I really appreciate a good “making of” documentary. I find that film students and film fans who might otherwise never get on a film set might really see something if you, the creator, are honest. Of course, I'm not doing the “making of” myself — I'm too busy making the movie — but I do encourage the reality principle. I don't want the “making of” to just be a promotional spot. Similarly, when I do a commentary, as I've done for Cosmopolis, I don't bullshit. I don't just say how wonderful is to work with or how much fun we had at the wrap party. I talk about the making of that particular moment we're looking at.

Is your next project ready to go?
Finishing my novel right now, and I hope to be shooting Maps of the Stars in May, written by Bruce Wagner. However, it is an indie project which means, therefore, that it could fall apart.

David Cronenberg's interview with Details/Via

DETAILS: Did having someone as marketable as Robert Pattinson in the lead help get Cosmopolis made?
DAVID CRONENBERG: It's not just Rob, but this was a Canadian-French co-production so actors like Juliette Binoche and Mathieu Amalric really do contribute to the strength that you have when you're trying to find money. What matters is, do you have a good actor working with you?

DETAILS: What made you want to cast Rob? This part is so far removed from what his enormous Twilight fan base would normally see him in.
DAVID CRONENBERG: Surprisingly enough they were very interested in it and developed websites for Cosmopolis just because of Rob. And a lot of the girls were talking about reading "Cosmopolis." I think the only thing they had read, probably, was "Twilight" and "Harry Potter," and suddenly they're reading Don DeLillo.

DETAILS: There's a very slick, high-tech fashion to the film. What was your inspiration for the look of Rob's character?
DAVID CRONENBERG: It all comes from what the characters are supposed to be in the movie. They're both very wealthy. They're both very comfortable with their wealth. It's interesting because some people have asked, "Is Rob's fame a parallel to Packer?" And I say, "No, quite the contrary. Eric Packer is not famous at all. He doesn't want his name in the paper." He dresses well, but sort of conventionally. In fact, Rob said that he wanted the guy to be dressed in almost a non-descript way. It's expensive clothes, but it's not flashy.

DETAILS: Maps to the Stars is supposed to start shooting in May. Have you been able to sign Robert Pattinson, Viggo Mortensen, and Rachel Weisz?
DAVID CRONENBERG: I don't think Viggo will be able to do it, but with the other two, so far, so good. Have they signed? No. But they have a verbal commitment if everything works out and if other things don't come along. It's still very possible for the three of them, but it's far from certain. That's life in the indie film world.

David Cronenberg's interview with IGN

IGN: Many people left Cosmopolis with questions, how do you feel that features like “Citizens of Cosmopolis” are going to illuminate things, or further the conversation?
David Cronenberg: I think the “making of” is actually longer than the movie, so it should do something along those lines. Obviously anyone who bought the DVD is interested enough in the movie to pursue it. I think one of the reasons that I like doing a really good “making of” is that we try very hard when we do that to not just make it a sort of fluff piece where everybody says, “it was great working with everybody,” but to really show what the process of making the movie was. As a result, for example, it’s great for film students and film enthusiasts because it’s as close as some people get to really being on a film set. And in this case it’s an unusual film set, obviously, because of the limo and so on. So we really took a lot of care to make sure that it was accurate, honest, straightforward and illuminating.

Cronenberg: Honestly I don’t have an agenda, and I don’t have a plan. It really is project by project. When I’m making a movie it’s as if I’ve never made another movie, honestly. I don’t think about my other movies. I think sometimes people think you say: “Yyes, now looking at the arc of my career I should do a movie like this.” But it’s never like that. First of all, it’s so hard to get movies financed that you can’t really control when the movie gets made. For example with Dead Ringers people said to me, “why now?” And I said, “well actually I tried to make it ten years ago, and if I’d gotten the financing together I would have made it happen then.” So, first of all, you don’t really have that control to pick and choose when you’ll do this kind of movie. And the other thing is, as I say, it’s just an individual response. When Cosmopolis the book was presented to me by the producer it was completely unexpected, and yet my response to it was immediately positive. My response to the book without thinking about Don Delillo’s other books, although I had read a lot of them, or my other movies. When I cast Rob Pattinson I’m not thinking about his other movies other than, “okay he’s famous enough to get us financing.” Other than that I’m just thinking about whether or not he’s a good actor. So you have to filter out the noise. There’s a lot of noise, and you have to filter it out and have a 1:1 relationship with the work that you’re doing, and I find that’s natural for me. I don’t find that hard to do.

David Cronenberg's interview with The Playlist

Talking about Rob

"I really think he's a terrific actor. He's extremely inventive. He surprised me every day on 'Cosmopolis' with the nuances and things that he did which were unexpected. Of course I was very familiar with the dialogue and yet he would surprise me," Cronenberg enthused. "And I thought, this is a guy who I would like to work with some more, which is how I felt with Viggo Mortensen. When you find an actor who surprises you everyday, you figure, he could do it some more with a completely different role in a completely different movie."

Talking about "Maps to the Stars"

"It's kind of a satire on Hollywood. It's very typical of Bruce Wagner's writing. And it's sort of a condensed essence of Bruce. And while it's satirical, it's also very powerful, emotionally, and insightful and funny," he explained about the movie. "And it would be the first time I've ever shot a foot of film in the United States. It's strange, just because of the way the co-production deals work, that even though I've had movies that are set in the U.S. like 'Cosmopolis' or 'The Dead Zone,' I've never shot in the United States. This would be the first time. And I'm really excited about it.

 Via RPLife

David Cronenberg #Cosmopolis Interview, on Rob's Casting and Fans Support

David Cronenberg searches for the soul in 'Cosmopolis'

Is there hope for mankind?

David Cronenberg mulls over the question. Remember, Cronenberg has directed such dark, disturbing and bleak films as "Scanners" (1981), "The Fly" (1986), "Existenz" (1999), "A History of Violence" (2005) and the current "Cosmopolis," based on Don DeLillo's 2003 dystopic novel.

"In my lifetime, yes, I think there's hope for mankind - but my lifetime might not be very long," Cronenberg said, laughing ominously at his own punch line. "The honest answer is yes and no. Who knows? It's such a huge question, but in the moment, as I'm riding my bicycle through the hills outside Toronto and it's quite beautiful and lovely, I say, 'I can't deny the reality of this, and it's great.' I have to feel very positive in that moment.

"At the same time, your head is very easily filled with reports of atrocities and calamities from all over the world," the filmmaker said, speaking by telephone from his home in Toronto. "When you're focused on that, you think, 'Oh my God, the human experiment is a disaster.' So you have both things, and I think you have to focus on those real moments that are positive and beautiful. You have children and grandchildren.

"It's a balancing act."

"Cosmopolis" stars Robert Pattinson as Eric Packer, a reclusive, self-made billionaire who, in the near future, spends a day in a tricked-out limousine threading his way through Manhattan traffic en route to a barbershop. Occasionally associates (Jay Baruchel, Samantha Morton, Juliette Binoche) enter the limo to confer or to have sex with Packer. He also steps out of the limo several times in order to meet his wife (Sarah Gadon), get a haircut or, for an extended sequence near the film's end, confront a former employee (Paul Giamatti).

Cronenberg fans will find "Cosmopolis" very much of a piece with his filmography, particularly "Existenz." That film concerned the creation of a new virtual-reality game into which players directly - and cringe-inducingly - plugged themselves. In "Cosmopolis," Packer relies on virtual reality to simultaneously monitor and detach himself from the real world.

"The sort of strange virtual-reality element of 'Cosmopolis' does lead you to 'Existenz,' " Cronenberg conceded, "but thematically they're different. Eric was characterized by one of the investors in the movie - a man named Edouard Carmignac, who is a genuine French billionaire - to be completely accurate. Edouard invested in this movie because he felt he recognized many of his colleagues in Eric, that they do, in fact, create this kind of bubble reality that they live in and that is just completely disconnected from people's idea of human reality.

"So on that level 'Cosmopolis' is very realistic," Cronenberg said. "Of course, at the same time, there are many gamers who live mostly in a virtual world and, I suppose, 'Existenz' is still an accurate portrayal. So there is that crossover."

At first glance, Packer appears to be a soulless character. He initially exhibits little to no outward emotion, not while receiving updates about his dwindling finances, not during sex, not ever. That sense of detachment is enhanced by the limo, which is smooth-running, soundproof and bulletproof, with tinted windows that minimize Packer's view of outside events and prevent prying eyes from looking in at him.

"You can see his soul as the movie progresses, as he approaches his childhood," Cronenberg said, "because, really, we begin to realize that the barbershop represents his childhood. It's his childhood barbershop. It's where he used to live. It's where he came from.

"Eric wasn't born into money. I think you see Eric become more vulnerable and more childlike and naive, and when he's in the barber chair he becomes like himself as a child, before he'd erected this Eric character, this Master of the Universe guy. So you should gradually warm up to him as you realize how vulnerable and how wounded he is.

"It's why I cast Robert," Cronenberg added. "It's a very uncompromising performance. We don't go out of our way to make him more likable than he is, but you want to watch him. He's very charismatic, Rob."

"Cosmopolis" is Pattinson's show, and it's as far removed as it could be from the commercial gloss and sparkly vampires of the "Twilight" films in which Pattinson has starred as Edward Cullen. The actor has been in the news of late, owing to the demise of his relationship with "Twilight" co-star Kristen Stewart, but Cronenberg lauds his leading man for his often-overlooked, still largely untapped talents as an actor.

"Rob is in every scene of this movie," the filmmaker said, "and I needed a guy who could support that. His accent is spot-on - it's very much like Don DeLillo's accent. He brings a wry sense of humor, and he brings that strange emotionality that you feel from underneath because, as I say, it's not there from the beginning, because it's a journey in more ways than one.

"You have to see Eric evolve and, thanks to Rob, you do," Cronenberg said. "I think it's a spectacular performance, very nuanced and detailed."

Like everyone with a stake in "Cosmopolis," Cronenberg hopes that Pattinson's legions of "Twi-hard" fans will turn out en masse for "Cosmopolis." Based on the production of the film, he said, that might happen.

"The Twi-hards followed this movie hugely," Cronenberg said. "There were 20 to 30 sites devoted to 'Cosmopolis,' some of them really quite spectacular, professional and slick, and they were being done mostly by Twi-hards, who are mostly girls, and they were reading the book. They were reading the book and commenting on it, on these sites, before the movie was finished."

The director is clearly impressed.
"That was incredibly satisfying," he said. "They were loving the book and the idea that Rob was doing it, and they're supporting Rob's choice.

"I got a lot of props myself," Cronenberg added with a laugh, "because the Rob fans are rooting for him to show what he can do as an actor and, therefore, they loved me for giving him the chance.

"That was their attitude, though my attitude was that I felt lucky to have Rob."

Source

#Cosmopolis David Cronenberg on Rob (New Interview)

Cronenberg's recent trilogy of films with Viggo Mortensen — “A History of Violence” (2005), “Eastern Promises” (2007) and “A Dangerous Method” (2011) — were among his most accessible and acclaimed.

Then the director snared Pattinson, one of the hottest actors on the planet. But “Cosmopolis,” which opens locally Friday, is not a multiplex-ready entertainment or even a horror film. Based on a novel by Don DeLillo (“White Noise”), it's a day in the life of a paranoid billionaire who runs his empire, beds his lover and checks his prostate in the back seat of a limo that's circling Manhattan.

To get the movie made, Cronenberg, 69, had to enter the sanctum of the same kind of kingpin who is satirized in the movie.

“One of our investors in this film is known as the French Warren Buffet,” Cronenberg told me when I passed the distributor's background check and was able to chat with him on the phone recently. “One of the reasons he wanted to get involved is because he says he deals with people like Robert's character all the time. They live in a kind of bubble of unreality. They handle billions of dollars every day but they never really touch money. He felt that this story was strangely accurate.

“These days, any director of an independent movie also functions as a producer. You end up talking with various distributors and investors from around the world to assemble this financial Frankenstein from private and government and corporate sources. It's very tricky.”

The ace up Cronenberg's sleeve was Pattinson, who attracted investors and then delivered a performance that leveraged his vampire persona from the “Twilight” movies. “I don't mind the metaphor of a blood-sucking businessman,” Cronenberg said, “but by the end of the movie, as he's thinking about his past and visiting his childhood barber, he's a much more vulnerable character.

“There's more to the world than money. Just yesterday I was biking through some hilly landscape outside of Toronto and it was beautiful. There were butterflies and bunny rabbits. I have a lot of confidence that the natural world will outlast all these horrible human things.”

Source Via   RobPattzNews

Cronenberg On Rob: "It's a wonderful performance,"

washingtonexaminer It seemed like a strange collaboration from the start: auteur David Cronenberg, best known for such weird masterpieces as "Videodrome," "Dead Ringers," and "The Fly," making young heartthrob Robert Pattinson the star of his latest film.

The choice might have been a marketing ploy, except that Cronenberg, who's calls Toronto, not Hollywood home, has never put audiences over his art. And no one could have imagined just how much publicity this small-budget film would end up getting thanks to its star (..)

A studio rep warns that the topic is off-limits during an interview with its director. But Cronenberg, as always, is so keenly intelligent in discussing his work -- and the making of art in general -- that it would be more than an insult to ask him about the scandal. It would be a waste of precious time.

He is happy to talk about how he ended up casting Pattinson, however. "Cosmopolis," based on the Don DeLillo novel about one big day in the life of an American financier, was financed through Canadian and European sources, which means the director could really only cast one American.

"There's a reason why they call it the film business and the film industry," he says. "You can't really cast unknowns." But signing the man best known for playing a broody vampire wasn't such a stretch. "When he agreed to do the first 'Twilight,' Catherine Hardwicke was directing, and he thought it was going to be edgy and hard."

"Cosmopolis" could certainly be described with those two words. And Pattinson delivers. "It's a wonderful performance," Cronenberg says of the actor's work in the film, adding with a laugh, "He's kind of a doing a Don DeLillo. We think it's from Queens, we're not sure."

Cronenberg's films often seem claustrophobic. In "A History of Violence," a crucial moment takes place on a staircase as married couple Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello go at it. And one of the most audacious scenes in contemporary cinema is the one in "Eastern Promises" when the Russian mobster played by Mortensen does battle in a steamy bathhouse.

"I do find myself drawn to that," Cronenberg says of his use of tight spaces. Much of "Cosmopolis" takes place in a limousine, as Pattinson's character does business on his way across town for a haircut.

"It's like writing a haiku or a sonnet. You have a very restricted kind of form. It forces you to be ingenious and inventive. It's very satisfying," Cronenberg says. "You've got intensity. You've got compression."

And there we have two words that could summarize the varied output of a man who's been making movies for over four decades: "inventive" and "intensity." "Cosmopolis" might have surprised some with its star. But the film itself is nothing other than pure Cronenberg.

(About) New David Cronenberg "Cosmopolis" Interview On Rob's Casting, Chemistry, Limo & More!

about David Cronenberg Cosmopolis Interview

I didn't read Don DeLillo's book but I'm assuming, just from watching the movie, that most readers would have thought it was unfilmable.

"Well, you know, in my landscape all novels are unfilmable, even the very simple ones, because the literary experience and the film experience are really much more different than I think most people realize.  So, for me, it's always been that my mantra is in order to be faithful to the book you have to betray the book. You have to accept that you're creating a new thing that will somehow maybe resonate with the tone or the feel of the texture of the novel.  But it will not be the novel, it will be different. And I realized that from when I did my first adaptation which was Stephen King's The Dead Zone, which many people felt was the first faithful, honest translation of a Stephen King novel - because there had been many up to that point. But, in fact, it's totally different from the novel but it somehow has the feel of the novel to people and therefore they accept it that way."

"I think if you read Cosmopolis, you will be struck by a couple things. One of them is that the dialogue is almost 100% taken from the book.  It's almost word-for-word. There were one or two scenes that I've left out but basically all of the dialogue is the same, and that's because it was the dialogue that really made me feel that this was a movie - the book. I loved Don DeLillo's dialogue. It's unique. It's so...in a way it's like Harold Pinter or David Mamet. You've got a tone that it is the way people speak, but at the same time it's very stylized.  That gives it a really heightened, very dramatic feel, and you know once you see the movie Cosmopolisand you read some of other Don DeLillo book - White Noise, let's say - you will hear the rhythms. You'll start to be reminded of Cosmopolis in any of his books because of that unique dialogue that he writes. So, there's that."

"And then, of course, in the book there's a lot of internal monologue that goes on within the head of this character, Eric Packer, and that is the stuff that you cannot translate into a movie. You often see what I consider to be quite a pathetic thing which is a voice-over reading of the novel to you like you're a kid at bedtime. While you are watching the movie somebody's reading you the novel, and to me that's always an admission of failure. You haven't accepted that the two things are different and you're not going to be able to do exactly the same thing."

There's also a really interesting flow of characters in and out of the movie. They're there for such a brief time, they make an impact, and then they're gone. There were quite a few I wanted to see more of. Is there anyone in particular you wished you could have kept in the film longer?

"I think 'keep them wanting more' is probably a good rule of entertainment rather than, 'Okay, I've had enough of this guy, give him the hook.' [Laughing] So, I think the proportions are pretty good. I mean I love that aspect of it. The character Eric Packer, he has this environment that he's created. It's sort of a vacuum insulated from the outside world and he forces everybody to come into it, to him, and then he dispenses with them when he's finished with them. You know, it's kind of the rhythm of it. It's like a king and his court, that's why he has kind of a seat that's like a throne in the limo. And so I think that the brutality that he has, the fact that when he's finished with them they're gone and he's onto the next, is part of what he is. So if you feel a little longing for some of the characters, that's probably a good thing."

How close did you keep the relationship between Eric and his wife Elise in the film to the way it was written in DeLillo's book?

"It's strictly from the book, but there was in the book a very strange scene which some people have said to me, 'Why didn't you have that scene?,' in which there's a kind of weird reconciliation that he has with Elise. But it's a scene in which Eric comes across a movie being shot in the streets of New York at night in which there are, for whatever reason, about 150 completely naked extras lying around on the street. He goes in to join them, takes his clothes off, lies down to join them and finds that he's lying next to Elise who is one of the extras, and they have this kind of strange reconciliation. And at that point when I was reading the novel I thought, 'Okay, this is a fantasy of his. There is no way, first of all, that you could shoot this on screen and have it be remotely convincing because this is not the way the City of New York works or the way movies work. You're not gong to be able to do that.'"

"I left it out because I really felt it was a kind of fantasy of reconciliation of his and that it wasn't real. And however surreal the movie is, it has a certain consistent level of its own reality and this felt like it was somewhere else. So other than that, though, all the scenes with Elise and the dialogue that they have are as in the book. And yes, she is never in his limo; she's one he can never get. He can never trap her."

And speaking of the limo, the car is basically a character. How difficult was it for you to get that limo design right, considering how much of the film is set within its confines?

"Well it's not a matter of difficulty, it's a matter of fun. It's exciting. I actually find that I like shooting in confined spaces because you get an immediate ramping up of intensity and so on. It also forces you to become very inventive visually.  You're less likely to fall into cliches when you're stuck that way."

"I showed my crew a movie called Lebanon which takes place entirely inside an Israeli tank and also Das Boot which famously takes place mostly inside a German submarine in the World War, just to encourage them, to know what you can do in a confined space and still be dramatic and still be visually interesting. So, I like that."

"And, of course, we built a limo. It's part of Eric's thing where on the outside it looks like all the other limos, because he's not looking to court celebrity or anything like that; he wants to be anonymous - that gives him a lot of the power that he has in his business.  But on the inside, it's very special so it was really fun doing that."

"One thing that isn't in the book is you don't have that center seat that he has, that kind of throne-like seat. That's just my design. And also, given when the book was written [Don DeLillo] had a lot of screens sliding up and sliding down and so on. I felt we didn't need to do that in the era of the iPad and the iPhone and so on. Now you could have screens built into everything. I thought it was a more elegant design and less fussy."

In casting Robert Pattinson, it's kind of a double-edge sword, You have hisTwilight fans anxious to support him in whatever he chooses to do and then you have the people who dismiss him because he is 'that guy from Twilight'.

"Yeah. In a weird way, on the one hand of course I'm completely aware of all of those elements and also of course when you're making a movie that for an independent movie was relatively expensive, you have to have a leading character who is very charismatic and who can carry the weight and has the star quality and so on, because you're going to be looking at him. He's literally in every scene in the movie, and that's pretty unusual. I mean even in Tom Cruise movies, Tom is not in absolutely every scene of the movie - but Rob is. So he has to have that. But at the same time, you want to forget the movies, you know? You want to forget his movies and my movies because we're creating this completely new thing and you don't know what audience you're going to get. You can anticipate it, you can think about it, but really you don't know. So ultimately when you're making the movie you're saying, 'Okay, I'm here with these actors. They're wonderful actors, I cast them because they're terrific and they will bring great stuff to the script,' and then at that point you're just making a movie and you're not thinking about any other movie."

Needing an actor to carry the film by being in every scene, how did you figure out Robert Pattinson was the right guy to play Eric?

[Laughing] "Well, this is the magic of casting! I think as a director, it's part of your job. It's a really important part of your job.  I think a lot of people don't even realize that the director's involved in casting.  Some people say, 'Did you choose your actors?,' and I say, 'Yes. You're not a director if you don't.'"

"Of course, you're juggling many things, like I say. You're juggling, for example, their passports. This is a Canada / France co-production and we were limited to one American actor. Most people of course don't know that - nor should they. Paul Giamatti is the only American in this movie even though it takes place in New York City. So from that kind of aspect to just finding the right guy...of course he's got to be the right age, there are a lot of things that are just basic. And then after that, though, there are no rules. You as a director just have to intuit that this actor will be able to carry off this role."

"We often talk about chemistry, for example, in movies between actors, let's say.  When I was doing A Dangerous Method, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender - how do I know they have chemistry together because I had never seen them in a movie together? They've never been in one; they've never met each other. I don't see them together until I'm actually directing them, so I have to be this kind of dating master who can anticipate that this couple will be good together. It's a strange kind of thing.  So you give yourself credit when it works, and you have to berate yourself when somehow it hasn't worked. That's basically where you're left."

It strikes me with Cosmopolis that the chemistry actually needed to come between you and Robert more so than between Rob and any of his co-stars.

"There's truth in that too. That is the unspoken thing is the chemistry between the director and the actors is the key. And at a certain point I think Rob would...you know, he's a serious actor and he didn't want to be the one who was going to blow this movie. He was kind of thinking, 'Well, I'll be alone in that limo because I won't have one person who is always playing opposite me. It's really a one-man show with a lot of day players coming in.' And I said, 'No, you won't be alone because I'll be there. I'll be with you every moment.' And so that is a real element."

Do you think that you view the character of Eric the same way that author DeLillo did? Or do you think that you two don't necessarily agree on how an audience should look at him?

"I think we actually illuminate things for each other. I've been on the road doing publicity with Don in several countries and I think he was pretty intrigued by seeing what would happen. Because, after all, once you put Rob Pattinson in that role, that's a very specific thing. You've got a particular face and a particular voice and a body, and that's something that the novel can not have. That's one of the things that movies can do that novels can not do, and so it immediately shapes the character in a way that he wasn't shaped in the novel.  So, there are differences, I think, but it's not a major split or divergence.  It's just really shading and shaping things. It's just really hearing the dialogue spoken, which was something that when I read the novel, I thought, 'Yeah, I really want to hear this spoken by really great actors.' Just doing that immediately changes your reaction to the characters and to the words. So there is a difference, definitely."

You said earlier there were one or two scenes from the book that couldn't make it into the movie and you described the movie being shot with naked extras on the streets of New York. Was there anything else you wanted to get into the film but it just would not work?

"I can be pretty brutal in an adaptation. I think, as I say, you have to be, so it's not that I wanted to. One of the other major things was that in the novel, very early on we start reading the journal of Benno Levin, that's the character that Paul Giamatti plays.  He actually writes a journal and we are in his head and we're reading his journal.  And when I met Don in Portugal for the first time, he said, 'I was wondering how you were going to handle Benno's journal and I see you handled it by leaving it out.' I said, 'Well yeah.'" [laughing]

"What I give you is I give you Paul Giamatti instead. I give you his voice and his eyes and his face and the way he moves and his hair and so on. And that's the tradeoff because you can't do a journal in a movie, you know? It deforms it. I mean I basically would have to have somebody reading the journal voice-over, probably Paul, but suddenly you're being read to like a kid. Immediately, it wasn't a question of I wanted to do it, I knew I couldn't do it and so I just didn't worry about it because I felt the last 22 minute scene was just Paul and Rob, and I figured that I'm giving you Paul Giamatti and his performance. That's enough of Benno, you don't need the journal in the movie." Read More at source

(Video) David Cronenberg Talks About ‘Cosmopolis’ and Rob at "the Museum of the Moving Art" tnxs @letmesigndotcom

* At the museum of the Moving Art, Thursday night (NYC)

thanks  letmesign

#Cosmopolis Interview David Cronenberg On Rob Casting And More

Of course everybody wants to ask you about your star, who unfortunately has decided not to join us today. I guess he has his reasons. How and why did you wind up casting Robert Pattinson?
Well, it begins in a very pragmatic way. You get a list of 10 people from various producers and agents, and you start with the basics. How old is this character, and how old is the actor? This character is young, his age is given as 28. So that’s where you start. Does he feel like the right guy? Eric talks about working out a lot and is very physical, so you’re not going to cast someone who’s overweight. It’s simple stuff like that to begin with. And then you get to the pragmatics: How big is your budget and what kind of star power do you need to get the movie financed?

And here’s something people don’t think about, which is the passport of the actor. This is a Canada-France co-production, so you’re really restricted in the number of Americans you can use. There’s only one American in this movie, even though it’s set in New York, and that’s Paul. So the fact that Rob is British helps, because he can fit into the co-production thing. So that’s the long way round, and ultimately you get to: Does the guy have the chops and charisma to hold the movie together? Because this character is in every scene of the movie, without exception, and that’s very unusual, even for a star.

So I looked at everything I could find that Rob had done, including “Little Ashes,” where he plays the young Salvador Dali, and I thought, yeah, he could really do this. And I think he’s actually extraordinary. It’s ultimately intuition on my part, and casting is a huge part of directing that’s very invisible. Making-of documentaries don’t usually cover the casting process, but for a director it’s a hugely important part of your art. Juggling all those other balls that I was just talking about, and still coming up with the right guy.

I realize I’d be better off asking him that question, but do you think Rob is eager to change his image after “Twilight,” and push into doing different kinds of characters? After this role, and playing a sadistic sociopath in “Bel Ami,” it certainly looks that way.
Well, I know from doing interviews with him in Europe that he’s not really thinking in terms of his career. He gets offered a lot of stuff, and it’s usually very conventional, boring stuff. He’s always been interested in doing unusual stuff. He’ll tell you that when they started with “Twilight,” he thought it was kind of an indie film. Which it sort of was, you know! It had Catherine Hardwicke as the original director, and it was an unusual, off-kilter vampire story. Nobody knew that it would be the kind of mainstream success that it became.

In a way, “Cosmopolis” is a lot closer to his heart than “Twilight,” you know. When he read it, he told me that he was also struck by the dialogue. He thought it was incredibly fresh and new and surprising and engaging, and he immediately wanted to do it. He was afraid, because I think he still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that he’s actually an actor! He didn’t grow up thinking he wanted to be an actor. As with many actors, and not just young, inexperienced ones, he wasn’t sure he was good enough! He wasn’t sure he was the right guy, and he didn’t want to be the guy who would bring down this terrific project. So my job, at that point, was to convince him that he was indeed the right guy. That took me about 10 days, I suppose.

Are you telling me that you have actually watched the “Twilight” movies? That’s a bit hard to imagine.
Yeah — or no, I watched about one and a half of them. I’m interested in everything, frankly. I’m not a snob, you know. I really am curious about everything. If something’s hugely popular, it doesn’t automatically mean I’m going to look at it, but sometimes I’m curious as to why something is really popular, let’s say. In the case of “Twilight,” I was watching it for Rob, that was the thing. It’s not like – I mean, I hadn’t seen them before that.

Read Cronenberg's full interview at the source via RPLife

ICYMI Now In Official YT (HD) "Why Rob was Afraid of Cosmopolis" ET Interview

etonline.com

Rob and Cronenberg talk about Cosmopolis with The Miami Herald

 

David Cronenberg remembers the time Oliver Stone asked him, “David, does it bother you to be such a marginal filmmaker?”

To which Cronenberg, one of Canada’s most admired and famous directors, replied, “Well, Oliver, it depends. How big of an audience do you need?”

Therein lies the secret to Cronenberg’s success. Cosmopolis, his new movie opening Friday, is an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel about a young billionaire named Eric Packer who spends a day in his limo riding around New York City in search of a haircut.

There is practically no traditional plot in Cosmopolis. More than half the movie takes place inside the limo, where Eric has meetings with his staff, gets a checkup from his doctor (“Your prostate is asymmetrical”) and even has sex. Although Eric is played by Robert Pattinson, the hugely popular star of the Twilight series, Cosmopolis is a tough sell for the multiplex crowd — a rigorous, challenging and oddly hypnotic movie filled with dense, jargon-heavy dialogue.

At 69, Cronenberg continues to make his heady movies the hard way.

“When you’re a filmmaker, you spend a year and a half of your life — maybe more — putting these things together: You have to get your financing in place and you go after actors who will reject you,” he says. “It’s a difficult process. So the movie has to really excite and intrigue me and make me feel like I’m going to discover something by making it,” he says.

“Naturally, you have to tailor the budget to suit the subject matter. No one is going to spend $200 million on Cosmopolis. But if you’re realistic about expectations and the size of your audience, and you’re willing to work for not that much money, you can come up with very interesting things.”

Cosmopolis’ $20 million price tag still seems high for such an outside-the-box movie, but Cronenberg offset the risk to financiers by casting Pattinson, who appears in every scene. (Colin Farrell was originally set to play Eric, but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts.)

“I got the script out of the blue and was offered the role, which was a little shocking,”Pattinson says. “Usually, the movies I am offered straight-up are terrible. This script felt so original, it was almost gleaming.

“I knew there was a movie to be made here. I was just worried that I might not be the one to pull it off. I kept thinking ‘There are tons of people better than me for this job!’ It took me a while to make peace with that.”

Cosmopolis offered Pattinson the opportunity to try a kind of minimalist acting he hadn’t done before. Eric Packer is a detached, aloof man who rarely expresses what he’s feeling. On the page, DeLillo makes us privy to his thoughts and interior monologue; on screen, Pattinson uses small gestures, the faintest trace of a smile or a frown and the hardening of a stare to convey his inner state.

“At the start of the movie, I am wearing this dark, blank suit,” he says. “I am wearing completely blacked-out sunglasses and I’m standing still, not moving. Every tool actors use for their performance has been taken away from me,” he says.

“But I felt secure because I knew David was watching me — really watching me — and that gives you confidence. Most of the time on movie sets, I question whether the director is even paying attention to what I’m doing.”

Pattinson’s legion of Twilight fans will be befuddled by this coldly fascinating movie, but Cronenberg has built a sufficient following to ensure an audience for the strange brew.

Not everyone will like it, of course. There isn’t a Cronenberg fan on the planet who could honestly say he loves all of the director’s movies. And that’s a testament to the risks he’s taken from the beginning of his 37-year career.
(...)

For Cronenberg, too, the inspiration to adapt Cosmopolis sprang not from grand themes but subtle detail.

“I was simply taken by the dialogue. It’s a bit like David Mamet or Harold Pinter, because it’s realistic on one level — it sounds like the way people speak — but it’s also very stylized. When I transcribed it into screenplay form, it gave the movie an incredible cohesion and resonance. That’s when I asked myself, ‘Is this a movie?’ And I thought, ‘Yes. It’s a really interesting movie.’ ”

Nearly all of the dialogue is lifted from the book, which meant the actors had to sound natural while saying lines like, “We’re all young and smart and were raised by wolves. But the phenomenon of reputation is a delicate thing. A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable.”

For Pattinson, the unusual cadences and word choices felt liberating.

“I felt a physical connection with the writing — I thought it was so good — and I wanted to read it aloud as soon as I got the script, just to see how it sounded. It is so perfectly written. I loved the fact that I didn’t need to put my personal stamp on it as an actor. I just had to perform it in the truest way possible.”

Read the full article at The Miami Herald for more of Cronenberg's comments about Cosmopolis and his career.Thanks RPlife

#Cosmopolis Cronenberg On Rob: "He was terrific and not predictable and dead-on accurate"

indiewire Anne Thompson: Why did you cast "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson as your ice-cold 28-year-old Master of the Universe?
David Cronenberg: Of course you begin with the basics. Is he the right age for the character? Does he feel convincing as a screen presence? Obviously you need someone with charisma to hold the audience for the entire movie. He's in every scene without exception, that's unusual. You want someone proven, who people want to watch, who will never be boring. I knew I would be crawling all over his face for the entire movie, so I wanted someone whose face is constantly changing, through all the angles. And he had to have chops for tricky dialogue. The art of casting is to intuit, to see from what he's done before that he could do this.

Was there a particular performance that gave you confidence
I saw him in "Little Ashes" as the young Salvador Dali. He does a Spanish accent, he was not afraid to play a character of ambiguous sexuality and eccentricity. That probably of all the things I saw made me think he was the right guy.

Did you cast Pattinson with a certain likeability factor in mind, so that audiences would like him in spite of the character he is playing? Feel some vulnerablity?
I really don't care. I want the lead character in a movie to be interesting, fascinating and complex, but to be likeable to me is way down the list. It's not on the list, because it is a simplistic thing for the lead character to must be likable. He has to be watchable, that's the key, and fascinating, and likeable if it works for the project, fine, let him be likeable. If not I don't worry about it.

There are actors who do not want to play unlikeable characters, afraid it will damage their credibility as stars or effect them personally. Actors who are more interested in being actors than stars, like Viggo Mortensen, don't worry about being likeable or not on screen.

How did Pattinson surprise you? 
He literally surprised me every day, as he read dialogue and interacted with the other actors. We were throwing different factors at him almost very day because of the stucture of the screenplay. He really has extended scenes. With one actor at the end, Paul Giamatti, he really let it fly, in that he didn't cling to a preconceived idea of what he should be doing. He reacted spontaneously to other actors as they surprised him and he surprised them. He was terrific and not predictable and dead-on accurate.

How many takes do you do?
One or two. The whole last shot was a long take with Giamatti, three minutes in that last 22-minute scene. Read more at source

Thanks RobsessedBlog

David Cronenberg On Rob, Cosmopolis (Spoilers) With Rotten Tomatoes (NY Press Junket )

The director on how he came to convince Robert Pattinson to star in his latest film, a surreal adaptation of Don DeLillo's infamous satire on modern capitalism.

rottentomatoes We had a chance to speak with Cronenberg earlier this week, during which he shared his thoughts about the film and how he came to cast Pattinson in particular.

---

Congratulations on Cosmopolis, David. It is a wonderfully strange film, even by your standards -- and I mean that in the most complimentary way.

David Cronenberg: [Laughs] Thanks.

I'm sure you're quite weary of answering this question, but we do need to get it out of the way...

Cronenberg: Sure.

Robert Pattinson. There were plenty of people who were a little surprised when you picked him for the role, but I have to say he gives a really sublime performance. You knew what you were doing, clearly -- so what was it that drew you to Robert?

Cronenberg: Well, casting always starts in a very pragmatic way. It's, "Is this guy the right age for the character?" "Does he have the right sort of physique, the right screen presence?" "Is he available, and if so, can you afford him? Does he want to do it?" You know, all of those things. But then you do your homework as a director, more specifically, and you watch stuff. I watched Little Ashes, in which Rob plays a young Salvador Dali; I watched Remember Me; I watched the firstTwilight movie. And I watched -- interestingly enough, I suppose, because people wouldn't expect it -- but you watch interviews with the guy on YouTube, you know. I want to get an idea of his sense of humor, his sense of himself, the way he handles himself, his intelligence -- all of those things you can't really tell from watching an actor play a role in a movie. I suppose in the old days you meet the guy and hang out, and go to a bar or whatever -- [laughs] -- but these days nobody has time for that, or the money, and so you do it some other way. And once I'd done all that stuff, I thought, This is the guy I want. I thought, He'd be terrific and I actually think he's a very underrated actor -- and it would be my pleasure to prove that by casting him.

I think a lot of people will share that opinion after seeing the film. Was he difficult to get? I mean, he's clearly up for it, based on his performance, but how do you go about getting Robert Pattinson?

Cronenberg: Basically, I wrote the script before I went into production on A Dangerous Method, so Rob got the script about a year before we were really shooting. He's a very down to earth guy, and he was surprised that anybody would want him. [Laughs] It sounds odd, I know. Of course, he knows that his name adds value because of his star power, but he knew my movies, and he knew I was a serious director, and I think he was nervous, you know -- I think he was afraid, because he knew it was good. He immediately loved the script, especially because he thought it was very funny -- and the movie is funny; a lot of people maybe don't see that the first time around -- and the script was funny as well. But also he had seen enough of the now conventional stuff that he gets offered to see how different this was, and how it stood out -- and the quality of Don's writing, because the dialogue is really 100 per cent from the novel.

So I really had to convince him that I knew he was the right guy and that he could do it. And you'd be very surprised that a lot of actors, and very experienced ones, too -- not just young ones -- they worry that they don't want to wreck your movie. They don't want to be the bad thing in your movie that brings it down. They need to be convinced that they're good enough, especially if they know it's good. He said -- and I know this 'cause of interviews that we've done together, and I hear him saying these things -- that usually the dialogue is so bad that you, the actor, figure that you are responsible for trying to make it interesting, just by the way you spin it. But in this case the dialogue was great, and it's a completely reversed worry: "Am I good enough to get the best out of this?" So it took me about 10 days, and Rob said he was afraid to call me back because he's used to bullshitting directors, like all actors do -- but because I'd written the script he couldn't do that with me. [Laughs] You know, actors can really tie themselves in knots, when really he just should've said, "Yes, I'll do it."

He only seems to connect with people on a very primal, and often violent, level -- be it sex, murder... or getting a haircut. That seems to be the only way in which he can cut through all the other stuff. Is that him devolving, his desire for self-destruction?

Cronenberg: Yeah, well I think that during the course of this day... and he does say, at the end, to the Paul Giamatti character [Benno Levin], "I think my life has changed during the course of this day" -- and it really has. He's going to get a haircut, but he's really also going to get a haircut from the barber who first cut his hair when he was a little kid, and used to cut his father's hair, and I think the suggestion is that he is trying to deconstruct his present life so that he can go back to his origins and perhaps reassemble it in a different way. But that doesn't quite work. It doesn't quite gel. I think when he's sitting in the barber's chair, certainly at the beginning, he is like a child. That's the lovely thing about Rob's performance, you really see the vulnerability; underneath it all there's this kind of childlike sweetness there for a moment or two. It's a very beautifully layered performance. But that's not working -- and the current Eric Packer takes over. He has to do extreme things to be able to feel anything and to be able to feel excitement and to feel alive. So that's what leads him to the end scene with Paul Giamatti.

There's a really magic shot in the film -- perhaps my favorite moment in his performance, also -- when he's stumbling down the alley with the gun, and he's looking for Paul Giamatti, and there's this particular look that comes over his face in that one moment and you can see his derangement. It was really wonderfully played.

Cronenberg: Yeah, it was beautiful. It was the only take that Rob did exactly that on, and I thought, Well that's the take. It was unexpected. I mean, Rob was constantly surprising me, I have to tell you, with things like that. Lovely, lovely things that were spontaneous but dead-on.

[Warning: Spoilers.] More at source

via ToR

New Video Rob And David Cronenberg At NYSE #Cosmopolis

Rob and David Cronenberg Q&A on August 15th In NYC

Rob and David Cronenberg will be in New York for a Q&A on August 15th at 6:30PM.
Tickets HERE (sold out)

Don't miss award-winning director-writer-producer David Croenberg ('A Dangereous Method', 'A History of Violence' ' Eastern Promises') and actor Robert Pattinson ('The Twilight Saga' 'Water For Elephants'). Their new film 'Cosmopolis', based on the novel by Don DeLillo, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and opens in New York on August 17.

When: Wednesday, August 15 - 6:30PM - 8:00PM
Where: The Times center - 242 West 41st St. NYC

New portraits of Robert Pattinson and David Cronenberg from Berlin #Cosmopolis press junket!

littlemonalisa| Pattinsonlife Via Pattinsonladies