Robert Pattinson: “When you release four films in the same year, they don’t all have to be the same”

Fiancé of Zendaya in The Drama, husband of Jennifer Lawrence in Die my love, rival of Ulysses in The Odyssey, soon to be opponent of Timothée Chalamet in Dune: Part III, Robert Pattinson confirms that he is experiencing the richest year of his career by playing – brilliantly – the unhinged TV presenter of Primetime. Could this overloaded schedule be proof that he has finally succeeded in adapting the constraints of the star system to his demands as an intrepid actor? The person concerned responds to us, here, now, and exclusively.

At the beginning of September, Robert Pattinson spent the weekend in Venice. Not for tourism, but to present at the 83rd Mostra Primetimeone of the most ambitious films of his career. Signed by Lance Oppenheim, a little genius from documentary, the film portrays Chris Hansen, a star American TV presenter – totally unknown in our latitudes, but very famous there – who hosted the show To Catch a Predator in the 2000s, a sort of hunt for pedophiles applauded by millions of spectators, and who seriously blurred the line between news and entertainment. Here is an extract from the interview to be found in the new issue of Firstavailable on newsstands and on our online store.

Subscribe to Première

First: Let’s start with a timetable point. You arrive from the London set of The Batman 2. After this short weekend of promotion of Primetime in Venice, are you going back to work Monday morning?

Robert Pattinson: Well yeah… Actually, no, not in the morning because I’m going to be shooting at night all week. And then it’s seven days a week for five weeks… (He laughs, then makes a face.) Looking at my schedule the other day, I said to myself: “Oh yes, it’s real work, actually!“

Four films in theaters this year, five if you count die my love which was presented at Cannes in 2025 but which was only released in France last spring…

Really ? That late?

This is the year of Robert Pattinson, and no one has missed it. Neither do you, I imagine…

No, no, I confirm. It’s starting to make for a bit of a busy schedule. I had slightly forgotten, by signing for all these films in a row, that I was also supposed to promote them after having shot them! I’m a little lost there, actually. Every other time, when I sit down in front of a journalist, I have a little moment of hesitation: “What film are we here to talk about, anyway?“

Today is for Primetimebut for others too… Because all these films necessarily have a dialogue with each other, right?

Yes, it is inevitable. You have to think about it carefully in advance because, as an actor, you don’t want to take the risk of boring the public with films or roles that are too similar. If you always stay in the same key, you can quickly become boring. That’s true in general, and even more so when you’re in four films in the same year! When I chose to do The Dramafor example, I already knew that I would be in The Odysseyand it seemed like a good choice because it was something lighter. Primetime – for which I signed the same day as The Drama – it’s something else again, a real turn, towards a more unexpected direction. And Dune 3 also should be very different.

A film like Primetime does not resonate quite the same way when it comes out after the success of The Odyssey and of The Drama…

It’s true. And I appreciate it all the better because when we were making this film, no one seemed to be interested in it! I think there was a photo taken by a paparazzi on the first day of filming, then nothing. We really shot it under the radar. The world left us in peace and that allowed Lance (Oppenheim, the director), Ajon (Singh, the screenwriter) and me to live immersed in his creation 24 hours a day, like crazy, for months. Lance is a young filmmaker, so he logically has completely boundless energy and enthusiasm. But as it was also my first film as a producer, I was particularly involved. I had a flash this morning: I remembered that, as Lance had a baby a week before the start of filming, Ajon and I actually found ourselves on FaceTime with him to talk about the film while he was in the maternity ward, with his wife giving birth next to him! Primetimeit’s that kind of film, made in a slightly crazy and feverish way.