Robert Pattinson has swept away his teen idol persona in one fell swoop, thanks toCosmopolis. ShortList’s Jonathan Crocker talks off-piste career choices with a reluctant superstar
Five minutes after meeting her, Robert Pattinson found himself having sex with French actress Juliette Binoche in the back of a limo. “She literally turned up and was like, ‘Let’s do it,’” he grins.
“It was just hilarious. There wasn’t enough room in the limo so she was banging her head on the ceiling.” So this is what’s it’s like to be Robert Pattinson. “It’s just boring,” he counters, almost apologetically.
What happens when you’re mega-rich, mega-handsome and mega-bored? You flip out. You get in a limousine and go on a ride that could change your life forever. Bouncy, backseat sex with an Oscar-winning actress. Boozy, late-night clubbing. Rabid crowds trying to get their hands on you. You beat up a guy in the street. You kill a man...
Hold on a minute. This isn’t Robert Pattinson’s real life. Well, it isn’t and it is. His startling role in David Cronenberg’s new arthouse psychothriller Cosmopolis – dark, sexy, violent, cerebral and possibly the weirdest film of the year – is exactly the one he’s been waiting for. A film impossible to understand, yet makes perfect sense.
In the most daring performance of his career, Pattinson plays a 28-year-old multibillionaire travelling across Manhattan in a stretch limo to get a haircut. By the end of the film, he’ll have destroyed everything he possesses to create an exciting, dangerous future.
“I want more,” Pattinson tells a bare-breasted hooker who is aiming a high-voltage Taser at his naked chest. “Show me something I haven’t seen before.” Well, here it is: Pattinson escaping from the Twilight zone.
READ A LOT MORE AFTER THE CUT