New 'Cosmopolis' BTS Stills - Bullet Magazine HQ Scan

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New Kristen interview with The Age (Australia)

Kristen Stewart hadn't read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight when the role of Bella Swan was offered to her. She was more interested in Jack Kerouac's 1957 Beat classic On the Road. She could relate to its sense of daring.

''It's rare to meet characters in fiction that live so much, that breathe so much,'' the sharply intelligent 22-year-old says. ''I thought, 'I've got to find people like this, people who push me and share my ambitions.' Not that I'm that unconventional, but I have slightly different limits and boundaries than most people, and the book says that is OK. The book celebrates it. I slept with On the Road on my dashboard when I got my licence. It was the first book that got me into reading.''

Kerouac's jazzy prose - which created uber-cool characters embracing drugs, alcohol and experimental sex as they travel the United States between 1947 and 1951 - had long been deemed unfilmable. Just after the novel's publication, Kerouac wrote to Marlon Brando hoping the star would play Dean Moriarty (based on Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady) while Kerouac would play Sal Paradise - based on himself.

Francis Ford Coppola also tried to make the movie after buying the rights in 1979. Yet it wasn't until The Motorcycle Diaries' Walter Salles came along that a film version finally went ahead.

About the time of Stewart's breakthrough role in Sean Penn's Into the Wild, Penn and Babel director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu suggested her to Salles for the role of Dean's wife, Marylou (based on Cassady's first wife LuAnne Henderson). The pair married when LuAnne was 15, and while they divorced and he had children with his second wife Carolyn (played by Kirsten Dunst), Cassady continued to hit the road with LuAnne and they remained close until his death.

By the time On the Road went into production, Stewart had become a household name and was keen for the women in the story to have more prominence. She points out that Kerouac's original tome featuring real people's names (he was forced to change them as well as parts of the story to get it published) was
far closer to the truth, particularly in terms of the women, and most notably LuAnne.

''It's funny because in the novel a lot of people's first impression is that LuAnne is just a plaything, that she is just f---ing and isn't getting much in return,'' Stewart says. ''[But] she just loves to love and is able to balance all of her desires, whereas the boys have a much harder time doing it. I think she [had] this beautiful, unique view of the world and was very ahead of her time.



''Afterwards the book's success definitely became something that a lot of people capitalised on … For LuAnne it was just so personal. It was never something she wanted to turn into a commodity or something she wanted to continue. It was just a stage of her life.

''She always said that it was so funny to her that people thought she was courageous. It was different for everyone, but LuAnne wasn't rebelling against anything. She was just unabashedly being herself.''

While fearlessly being herself is something the media-shy Stewart aspires to as well - ''I think it's so ridiculous when actors suddenly find themselves so interesting that they're willing to sell themselves'' - she admits having more in common with the book's narrator, Sal.

''As LuAnne I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to lose control; that I wasn't going to be able to let go. Luckily I did, but I don't think you can claim that you are suddenly a different person.

''Actors are playing characters … but I do find that you're just sort of unleashing qualities that are buried pretty deep.''

Old Rob interview from Cannes with Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)

The vampire star doesn’t hold back when it comes to his image. His latest movie, “Cosmopolis” is set in a limo, where he lives with daily prostate examinations and customer visits.

Robert Pattinson is walking with a cup of coffee in one hand a red lollipop in the other hand at the hotel’s restaurant, at the rooftop in Cannes. He manages to not look like a moviestar which is very clever because everybody follows the moviestars in Cannes, and it’s like you can almost feel the air crackles of static electricity.

But that doesn’t seem to bother this 26-years-old british man. He talks, laughs and is excited and often sounds, frankly, like he was a few years younger and not a young veteran with experience from a dozen feature films.
-It was so weird at the screening yesterday, cause I didn’t even see the movie, I just sat there and listened if someone coughs. I just sat there and thought -”Oh God, please let it go well, oh god please!”

So little, it helps the confidence to have been involved in a “Harry Potter” film, and that after having been a handsome vampire in four Twilight movies, be a superstar and dream guy for 3 billion teenage girls. He had a particular reason to worry. The film “Cosmopolis” is not digestible. It is based on a novel by the esteemed American writer Don DeLillo from 2003. Pattinson plays an immensely rich and bizarre young businessman who travels in a huge limousine through a city – they associates to New York- in the uprising. The car is his office, at various stops employees jumps in to bring him into the world situations and the business. It’s bad made on all fronts, class war rages, his own empire is about to collapse, as well as his marriage. Nothing seems unperturbed Pattinson’s character, which, although it is becoming more violent on the streets are determined to go straight through town to get a haircut.



The Canadian David Cronenberg directs, so viewers get guaranteed no help in understanding this odd vision of the future. The film takes place almost entirely in the limo.
- Well it looks weird, the script, but for me the most difficult part of the job was to determine whether I would take the role or not. I wondered if I could really do this. A week after David asked me, I thought on the one hand that “I know it is a great story and it’s Cronenberg that’s going to direct so it’s really a cool deal.” And on the other hand, “You’re on camera the whole time and if you fuck up, you will fuck up the whole movie.”

Rob pulled himself together when he realized that the only reason to say no would be that he did not dare. He would be forced to admit that to the producer. – “They’ll think I’m a wimp, I can not say it,” I thought.
At a later conversation with David came Rob’s fear: “All actors are always afraid of something,” said the white-haired director. After “Cosmopolis” none can accuse Robert Pattinson of holding back with his image.

To his character’s oddities, is that every day he undergoes a thorough medical examination. It includes that the doctor checks the prostate. That is, the extract, in the limo while Pattinson is having a conversation with his associate Juliette.When Pattinson describes his collaboration with Cronenberg, you get a picture of how the former jumped like a little eager puppy funt feet on the latter, which is more like the one to take each day as it comes.

-I always wanted to talk about the complexity of the script, but he said: “Just wait until we are on the set and the time, when we are in the limo, you will understand how to act.”
If Cronenberg did not manage to find a good way to take the stage that was at today’s recording schedule he simply jumped to another. Pattinson admired his self-confidence, but it was hard: -You had to know the entire script and be prepared to take on any scene anywhere.

Pattinson has a reputation that he read diligently, but DeLilo is a writer that he has discovered only in connection with this job. Lately, he has to his own surprise, “it’s weird” – stuck for poetry. He has fallen for American Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “though I’m not so fond of the beat writers.”
As Cronenberg promised, the limo helped. A real car was used, divided into so that you could take it apart in about twenty parts. During the shots, there was only one remote camera, a sound engineer, stowed so that he did not appear, and so Pattinson and have currently played against.

- You could not see out, the windows were completely black. It was so quiet, as in a recording studio, the air was completely dead. It’s weird. You become aware of the sound of your own voice.
Rob got used to it and surprised to his delight that it gave him the upper hand when he played against the actors, he was a little afraid of, like Binoche, who was now a little shaken up by the strange environment. The luxuriously equipped coffin look-a-like limo helped the creation of the complex billionaire Eric Packer.

- They say you have to share the world with all the other people. He is apparently quite convinced that he can live in his own world, where he forces everyone else to communicate on his terms. Pattinson seems on the other hand not sure about most things. At an early Los Angeles screening of “Cosmopolis” he managed for once to see one of his own movies and really see it because it was such a ‘David’ movie. “Otherwise, Rob usually sit and feels so tormented by the sight of himself – “Oh Jesus, I look like an idiot, what am I doing with my face?”

Sure he doubts himself, he answers when we ask him a question. You have to: – As soon as you start believing that you are good, you become useless. Though it’s a exhausting way to live.

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New Rob and David Cronenberg Interview

As you may have heard — it has been in the news here and there — Twilight stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart broke up this summer.<br /><br /> Actually, everyone has seen the stories — including Pattinson. “Yeah, I read it,” the 26-year-old British actor says during an interview at a New York hotel. “It’s my life. You sort of want to read it. You feel like you need to read it. It’s one of those things where you keep picking a scab. You know you shouldn’t be doing it, but it’s a weird kind of addiction. You desperately want to stop.”<br /><br /> About a month ago, a tabloid published photos of Stewart, Pattinson’s live-in girlfriend of four years, in an embrace with her Snow White & the Huntsman director, Rupert Sanders. Since then, the media seem able to talk of little else.<br /><br /> “At times, I find the whole thing pretty funny,” Pattinson admits. “It is pretty funny. My life is kind of ridiculous to me. It’s so absurd at times.” Pattinson would rather talk about his new film, the David Cronenberg drama Cosmopolis. When the noted independent filmmaker, whose credits include A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), gave Pattinson the script for Cosmopolis — based on the Don DeLillo novel — the actor could see himself as Eric Parker, the 28-year-old billionaire asset manager whose world falls apart around him as he rides in his stretch limo to get a haircut while wagering his company’s massive fortune on a bet. But Pattinson had one problem.<br /><br /> “I was honest with David and said that I loved his script, but I didn’t fully understand it,” Pattinson says. “I knew, if I tried to have a BS conversation about it, that David would call me out.”<br /><br /> Cronenberg, too, had some reservations — about Pattinson. “Could this British guy do a New York accent where it’s not agonizing?” the filmmaker recalls wondering. “Could he play that age? Does he have the charisma to hold the audience for the whole movie, because he’s literally in every scene? “I did my homework and watched Little Ashes (2008) and Remember Me (2010),” Cronenberg says. “I even watched interviews that Robert did. I wanted to know what this guy was like when he was just being himself. I wanted to get a feel of what he was like as a person. I wanted to know that he had a sense of humor, and he does.<br /><br /> “I finally said, ‘OK, this is the right guy.’  ”<br /><br /> Most of Pattinson’s films have required him to forgo his natural British accent, so he had no problem finding Eric’s New York speech patterns.<br /><br /> “I don’t even know what accent I was doing half of the time,” he admits. “I always found that the dialect was written in the lines. The voice was also part of the preparation. I wasn’t even trying to get a New York accent.”<br /><br /> His next film is, of course, the series-ending Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, due in November. Cosmopolis is nothing like that, which is by design. “I try to do something different from vampire Edward Cullen each time I’m not doing a Twilight film,” Pattinson says. “I even try to make him different each time I do Twilight.”<br /><br /> As a child growing up in London, Pattinson had dreams of stardom, but they involved music. That he ended up as an actor still bemuses him. “When I’m asked to write down my occupation, it’s still hard for me to write actor.”<br /><br /> After auditioning for Troy (2004) but not getting the part, Pattinson was cast in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) as the handsome, charming and doomed Cedric Diggory. Three years later, he began his turn as soulful vampire Edward Cullen. For “Twi-hards” dreading the end of the film franchise, Pattinson offers some words of hope. “I’m sure they’ll have a Twilight TV-series spinoff soon,” he says. “They’ll do it again.” That presumably wouldn’t involve Pattinson. There is talk of a film prequel, however. Would he be willing to play Edward again? “Who knows?” says Pattinson, laughing. “The only thing that creates a little bit of a problem is that I’m supposed to be 17 forever.”<br /><br /> source

Rob and Cronenberg interview with The Republic

The phone call began with Pattinson and Cronenberg laughing.

Question: Sounds like you two aren't having any trouble having fun.
Pattinson: We rollick and frolic. We have no problem.

Q: And Robert, you haven't been in the news enough lately.
Pattinson: Heh.
Q: Your character is a disconnected guy trying to connect. Or maybe it's the other way around. How do you play that?
Pattinson: I think he's just very, very self-obsessed. It's going deeper and deeper into self-obsession until it kind of implodes. It's also just the words. Everything is done for me. I sort of instinctively felt like I knew what to do from the beginning because the script was so good.

Q: Is it tricky to direct someone having a prostate exam (as Packer does in the film)?
Cronenberg: For me? Oh, no problem.

Q: Robert, I assume you're rich. But Packer is incredibly rich. Is there a freedom to that?
A: I think it's actually quite a difficult way to live. I've met a few people who have fictional money (laughing). If you have any interest in the world, it's very difficult to see. Your eyes are totally different to most people. Money really does change people. You have to make an effort to be normal, I think.

Q: Did you go through that when you became successful?
Pattinson: It's different. Dealing with fame is different. Everyone gets stuff thrown at them in life, and you have to figure out how to deal with it.

Q: There's a ton of publicity surrounding you now, good and bad. Presumably you're in a bubble while shooting the film, so not as many people are keeping up.
Cronenberg: In fact, a lot of the "Twilight" fans were keeping up. They made websites, and they had spy-cams. But all of that was really quite sweet. It was quite gentle and quite affectionate, and you had these young girls who had never read anything but "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" before (but) were reading "Cosmopolis," they were reading Don DeLillo and writing about it on their blogs.

Q: Robert, "Twilight" is winding down. What has that been like?
Pattinson: Pretty crazy (laughing). No one ever believes me, but no one involved with the first movie had any idea that it was going to turn out to be what it was going to be. We didn't even know if we were going to make the sequels. You go on this runaway train that I was entirely unprepared for. And at the same time, I was kind of figuring out whether I wanted to be an actor or not, which is kind of interesting. You're in your 20s, you're trying to figure out what you want to do with your life.

Q: What about the fame aspect of it? Isn't that kind of a weird way of life? You can't even walk across the street without someone taking a picture.
Pattinson: Yeah. It's just how you deal with it. Everyone has to figure out how they want to live. It's a challenge.

Cronenberg: I can say that Rob was definitely able to walk across the street in Toronto (where "Cosmopolis" was shot) and no one noticed. And he could go to a bar and he could go to a restaurant. Really, part of it has to do with where you are and how much you're publicizing yourself. If you're Lindsay Lohan and you're making sure that everybody knows where you are at all times, then you know what the consequences will be. But if somebody doesn't want that, there are ways you can do that.

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Rob and Cronenberg discuss Cosmopolis, fans, fame and more with The Boston Globe

Q. You both have said that you filmed this movie in chronological order, and I know that with many movies, the last scenes are shot first. Was that a luxury — to film from start to finish?
Cronenberg: One of the trickiest things that I had to learn as a director was exactly that. I mean, suddenly you’re forced to shoot the last scene of the movie first. And it’s hard for the actors because they don’t know who they are yet and they’re doing their death scene. As an actor myself, I was in Clive Barker’s movie “Nightbreed,” and the first thing we shoot was my character getting killed. And I said a typical actor thing. I said, “How can I know how to die when I haven’t lived yet?” So it is kind of a luxury. I think Rob can talk about that.

Pattinson: I agree. (Laughs) I don’t think I can add to that.

Q. You have both been very candid in interviews about the fact that you didn’t necessarily know how this novel would translate to film and what it meant to you. Do you have a different interpretation of the text now that you’re finished with the film?Pattinson: Well, I like it. I don’t think that confusion is necessarily a bad thing. We’ve done hundreds of interviews now and I still find myself coming up with new things to say.

Cronenberg: Those statements that we made, which were very candid, can be misinterpreted as meaning we were inept, incompetent. But not at all. You know, I don’t do storyboards, for example. I don’t really know what I’m going to do at every set up and every shot. It’s all very spontaneous and of-the-moment, even what lens to use. That’s what we’re talking about. We don’t have it all mapped out. We’re trusting the script and trusting the dialogue that is all 100 percent Don DeLillo’s and taken from the novel directly. We know that if we respond directly to that . . . the movie will have its coherence.

Q. You just rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. What was that like? And what do you think the people there would think of this movie if they saw it?
Cronenberg: All through the halls of the stock exchange they have these monitors built into the walls, and they were all showing clips of “Cosmopolis.” All of the people there who were marshaling us were incredibly excited about the movie and really wanted to see it. And they were incredibly friendly and sweet, and I was suddenly thinking, “This is the wonderful, friendly face of capitalism. I don’t know why I’ve been fighting it for so long. I think I’m going to buy some stock.” [Pattinson laughs.] And the stock exchange is about marketing. To link the starting of the day with some product that’s being marketed was a no-brainer. And the fact that it might be rather ironic that we were opening the stock exchange; I don’t think it occurred to them.

Q. Mr. Pattinson, what did you think of the visit?
Pattinson: I’m so clueless about anything to do with that world. I was kind of just terrified that I was somehow going to mess it up. And also to see people’s enthusiasm. It’s so alien. Even people’s attitudes there. It seems so alien to me. I mean, I’ve met traders before, but in their own environment — everyone’s extremely happy, which is not what I expected. It doesn’t seem stressful at all. They were all excited about seeing who was going to ring the bell this morning. They had the American gymnastics team closing it that day. It looks like a really fun place to work.

Q. You guys seem like you like each other a lot. You seem so close during this publicity tour. I was thinking, when I looked at pictures from the stock exchange visit, that you actually look like relatives.

[Cronenberg and Pattinson laugh.]

Cronenberg: We get along pretty well and we were kind of wearing the same suit. They were Gucci suits that were connected with the movie — the character wears them — and so, we were Tweedledum and Tweedledee at that point.

Q. Mr. Cronenberg, where do you most enjoy promoting your films? You don’t have to say America.
Cronenberg: I have a huge enthusiastic fan base in France. My first films were horror films and genre films, and in France they never had any prejudice against them, whereas in North America, in the old days when I started especially, there was prejudice against them. They weren’t taken seriously as good cinema. So I suppose I feel more comfortable, weirdly enough, in France releasing a film. The level of discourse there is very intelligent, very intellectual, sometimes humorously so, but I like playing that game there.

Q. Mr. Pattinson, how have you taken to the Cronenberg fan base? I imagine that it’s strange to see “Twilight” fans with people who love David Cronenberg movies.
Pattinson: Absolutely. We were in London and we did a Q&A and it was two very diverse groups of people who suddenly came into contact with each other for I think probably the first time. And, I don’t know . . . David’s horror film fans . . . and general “Twilight” female fans . . . are actually quite a good pairing. I think both of them didn’t see anything in each other first of all, but they’re quite a good, odd couple. When you see a bearded guy with long hair, who absolutely will weep [for Cronenberg] . . . and then a “Twilight” fan who will weep at that, they actually look like a couple.

Q. Mr. Pattinson, I have to ask, in reference to all of the talk show hosts who are asking you personal questions right now: I’m always fascinated by the ability of celebrities to just disappear during a controversy. How do you do that? Is there a tunneling system? Where do you go to hide when you’re so watched?
Pattinson: There is a netherworld where celebrities go. They’re the only ones that have access to it. A mysterious little network of boroughs. (Giggles.)

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Cronenberg talks about casting Rob and discusses his career

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. source

A Look Back at Kristen [THR Scan]

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Confirmed: Rob, Kris and Taylor are Not Attending Twi-Tour LA This Year

They say all good things must come to an end and so it is with our three year long The Twilight Saga: Official Convention Tour which has visited cities across The United States and Canada. Along the way we've met tens of thousands of fantastic fellow fans and it has been a particular joy celebrating the unprecedented success of the films and novels and working with so many talented and gracious stars. The passion and dedication of Twilight fandom has been amazing and we're out to throw one last giant convention, a final gathering to see old friends that have made up the Twilight family.

Although Rob, Kristen and Taylor will not be with us this time out we will have a super line-up of other Twilight stars and the weekend will be filled with special events, movie prop and costume displays, contests, panels, auctions, parties, exclusive merchandise, music and much more, including some surprises!

The last chapter in the film series, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 opens in America on November 16th, just a few weeks after the convention. So with excitement and anticipation in the air we invite YOU to be part of the fun…. make your plans to be with us NOW! for the wrap-up event of "The Tour!"

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FilmInk Magazine (Australia) Scans

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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.”

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As ‘Twilight’ fades, Pattinson tests himself (AP & The Washington Times)

NEW YORK - Robert Pattinson was nearing the end of shooting the last “Twilight” film, concluding a chapter of his life that had picked him out of near obscurity and was preparing to spit him out … where exactly? “Twilight” had made him extravagantly famous, but his next steps were entirely uncertain.

“Out of the blue,” he says, came the script for “Cosmopolis” from David Cronenberg, the revered Canadian director of psychological thrillers (“Videodrome,” “Eastern Promises”) that often pursue the spirit through the body. Pattinson, having never met or spoken to Cronenberg, did a little research: He looked him up on Rotten Tomatoes “and it was like 98 percent approval,” he says.

“It was like: OK, that’s my next job,” says Pattinson.

Pattinson now has the unenviable task of releasing his most ambitious movie, his most adult role, into a media storm that instinct would suggest should be run from like a pack of werewolves. Promoting “Cosmopolis” puts Pattinson in front of cameras and microphones for the first time since his “Twilight” co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart last month publicly apologized for having a tryst with director Rupert Sanders.

The awkward circumstance, he says, is “dissociated” from the film, and he’s thus far declined to use the attention to make any kind of public response to the scandal. Rather, he’s sought to deflect it to “Cosmopolis,” a film that, in an earlier interview before it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, he said “changed the way I see myself.”

If Pattinson is understandably guarded about his private life, he’s refreshingly openhearted and humble about his anxieties as a young actor. At 26, Pattinson may be one of the most famous faces on the planet, but he’s still getting his bearings as an actor _ a profession, he says, he never pined for, fell into by chance and has always found uncomfortable. His unlikely trajectory began with “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Little Ashes,” in which he played Salvador Dali.

“Then I got `Twilight’ and it suddenly became a massively different world to navigate,” Pattinson said in a recent interview in New York. “Most people who get their big hit have figured out what their skills are, and I hadn’t, really.”

“Cosmopolis” is a radically different kind of film that will surely confuse not only the hordes of diehard “Twilight” fans who will line up on Friday to see it, but art house moviegoers, too. Pattinson himself has watched it four times to try to get his head around it.

The first movie adaptation of a Don DeLillo novel, “Cosmopolis” is about a sleek financier, Eric Parker (Pattinson), slowly making his way in the airless sanctuary of his white stretch limo across a traffic-jammed Manhattan with the simple goal of a haircut. But the journey, which includes visits with his new wife (Sarah Gadon), a prostitute (Juliette Binoche) and Occupy-like protesters (Mathieu Amalric), is a kind of willful unraveling for Parker, who dispassionately watches his fortune slide away on a bad bet on the Chinese yuan.

“He’s an egomaniac who wants to see some kind of spirituality in his egomania,” says Pattinson. “It’s kind of like how actors feel about themselves.”

Pattinson is in every scene of the film, which relies on his callow, hyper-literate performance to carry the movie through its limited setting and DeLillo’s heightened dialogue _ much of which Cronenberg transcribed verbatim from the novel. Though some reviews have found the film static and impenetrable (perhaps intended responses), most critics have praised Pattinson’s performance, with many citing it as proof that the heartthrob can indeed act.

The stylized language and atypical nature of the film made it a risky and intimidating choice for Pattinson.

“I couldn’t hear the voice of the character at all. There was nothing,” he says. “It was scary to say yes to something which you didn’t know what it was. I knew it was interesting, I knew there was something special but I had no idea how to do it or what I could add to it. But when you start saying no to Cronenberg because you don’t think it’s good enough, it’s a stupid decision to make.”

It’s clear that his “Twilight”-fueled celebrity weighs heavily on Pattinson, who says he knows people watch his films “through a cultural context.”

“Rob, he’s popular,” says Cronenberg with deadpan understatement.

“I couldn’t have cast Rob without `Twilight’ just as I couldn’t have cast Viggo (Mortensen) without `Lord of the Rings,’” says the director whose previous three films _ “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises,” “A Dangerous Method” _ starred Mortensen. “The fact that somebody who has clout is willing to do a movie that’s difficult is a gift to a director because you’re not only getting the right guy as an actor, but you’re getting financing interest and you get to make the movie. This is not an easy movie to get made.”

Pattinson seems energized by the freedom of choice in front of him following the final “Twilight” installment, which will be released in November. He’s lined up parts in gritty films far from blockbuster size: “Mission: Black List,” a military thriller, and “The Rover” by Australian director David Michod (“Animal Kingdom”), a role he says he fought for more than any before.

Embarking on “Cosmopolis” appears to have been a process of letting go for Pattinson of self-awareness, of worry, of fear. Asked if he now feels certain he’s an actor, he quickly replies, “No.”

“As soon as you start existing in a certain world, you feel like you have tremendous amount of baggage all the time,” he says. “You get stuck in this rut where you want people to think you’re something else, but you’re too scared to do what that is to actually be the other person.

“Then you get a gift like this movie where it’s way easier than I thought it was,” he says. “You just do it. It doesn’t really matter if you fail.”

Cronenberg talks about how he convinced Rob to star in 'Cosmopolis'

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 first Twilight 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."

Was there a point during shooting where he realized, "Hey, I am good enough for this," or did you have to encourage him constantly?
Cronenberg: No, it's not like he's so insecure or anything like that. I never saw any of that on the set. I know he was constantly checking himself out and wondering if it was good, but I didn't feel that he needed an inordinate amount of that kind of encouragement, really. We just did it. He could tell. The best way for an actor to tell, ultimately, is that it wasn't long before we were just doing one or two takes of everything -- and that means the actor knows it's working.

Well it appears that you've started something of a trend now David, because Werner Herzog has just cast him in his next film.
Cronenberg: Well that pleases me no end, and I think that obviously this is what Rob needs. They just need to see that he's really, really good and really, really subtle; and that he can do a lot of different stuff. Once you break through that barrier then I think there'll be no turning back.

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.
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Cronenberg talks about Rob with 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.

Alt Film Guide: An Appreciation: Kristen Stewart 2012

Kristen Stewart 2012: Appreciating an Engaging Actress

Let me begin by explaining that I initially wrote this Kristen Stewart piece about ten days ago. I’ve kept postponing its publication because there have been numerous changes in regard to the status of Stewart’s various film projects. For instance, Kristen Stewart has been cast in a movie version of Lie Down in Darkness, with Crazy Heart‘s Scott Cooper directing. No, actually she has her name only "attached" to the indie project, which may or may not get made. Stewart is going to star in the "gritty" thriller Cali for Nick Cassavetes. No longer: she has dropped out of the project. Stewart is "possibly" going to star in a Snow White and the Huntsman sequel. No, there won’t be a sequel, but a spinoff focused on the Huntsman; Stewart will not take part in it. Scratch that: if there’s a spinoff, she may return as Snow White. Why all this now? Well, as a result of the "Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders cheating scandal" in late July, Stewart has become Queen of the Tabloids. Not that she had a choice. The "celebrity industry" and its rabid consumers made the decision for her, interpreting photographs — with no understanding of their background — whichever way they saw fit. Consequently, Stewart has also become Queen of the Movie Casting / Uncasting Stories as well. Film publicists will do whatever it takes to generate some extra buzz for their clients’ potential projects.

Kristen Stewart: Not Bella Swan (and that’s good) 

 The scandal — Kristen Stewart in a reported relationship with Robert Pattinson; Rupert Sanders married with little children — hasn’t helped Stewart’s image, already the object of ridicule because of the Twilight movies and the target of countless attacks because of her refusal to play "nice." An actress for about a decade, but a star for less than four years, Stewart clearly has trouble being a major celebrity. She unabashedly flips off paparazzi; she has loosely used expletives while interviewed; she was photographed (apparently) smoking pot; she seems edgy on television appearances. But what bothers so many others is exactly what I find most engaging about Kristen Stewart. She’s not Twilight‘s Bella Swan and doesn’t pretend to be Bella off screen. She’s not phony "sweet and nice" when the spotlight is on her. She never comes across as some "wholesome" apple-pie eater. She smiles when she feels like it, not when she’s supposed to. In my view, those characteristics are admirable. Neither a Twihard nor a Twihater Before I proceed: Generally speaking, it seems like either you’re a Twihard or a Twihater. Twihards love everything in any way connected to the Twilight novels and movies. Twihaters are the exact opposite. I’m neither. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Stephenie Meyer’s first Twilight novel, I had mixed feelings about the three sequels. In all honesty, at times I felt compelled to chop off Bella’s head. Or at least her hair.

Kristen Stewart ‘cheating’ photos attacks 

The four movie adaptations to date have been a mixed bag. The most effective one was Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight, though even that particular effort was wildly uneven: moments of genuine humor and pathos interspersed with moments of Hollywood tripe and commercialism. But one thing that has been consistent is my enjoyment of the series’ actors: Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and Cullen Clan members Elizabeth Reaser, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, and Kellan Lutz. Even the novels’ insufferable police chief Swan is made likable by Billy Burke. Since I’m neither a Twilight die-hard fan nor a die-hard hater, I find it both troublesome and impossible to comprehend the aggressive obsession of some fans and the haters’ venom directed at those associated with the Twilight movies. Thanks to the scandal, the haters’ chief target of late has been Stewart, a 22-year-old actress with an acting background that includes nearly 30 feature films, of which only five belong to the Twilight franchise. I’ve avoided reading the raw sewage vomited by online tabloids, quoting anonymous "sources" while offering details — both lurid and ludicrous — about the various participants in the "cheating scandal." But avoiding the barrage of anti-Kristen Stewart attacks elsewhere, including among Alt Film Guide commenters, has been more difficult. For instance, when Vulture announced that Stewart had landed the role of Peyton Loftis in Lie Down in Darkness, negative reactions were fierce: Kristen Stewart instead of last year’s Best Actress Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), who was reportedly up for the role as well? Are they insane? Kristen Stewart is the worst actress ever (or at least "of her generation"). She only has one expression. She is inept. She looks perennially nauseated / constipated / bored / pissed off. And she’s a bitch tramp whore slut homewrecker who cheated on Robert Pattinson. Now, though I’m no fan of (the extremely well-received) Winter’s Bone, I have absolutely nothing against Jennifer Lawrence. Even so, I was thrilled to learn that Kristen Stewart was the one "attached" to Lie Down in Darkness. Stewart’s nervous energy — underused in the Twilight movies, but glimpsed in Welcome to the Rileys (and in her various public appearances) — could be immensely effective in the portrayal of an unbalanced character.

Kristen Stewart’s ‘mannerisms,’ ‘limited range’ 

 I should add that those who say Stewart has only one expression have surely never watched her on screen. Even in something as pre-fabricated as Chris Weitz’s New Moon, she manages to convincingly display a wide range of emotions in key scenes: lightheartedness, fear, passion, anger, regret. Only someone blind — or blinded by prejudice — would think she looks "her usual sullen self" when confronted by Dakota Fanning in the Volturi’s palace or while watching Taylor Lautner’s werewolf disappearing in the forest at the end of the film. As for those never-ending complaints that Stewart relies on the same mannerisms no matter the role … Well, how many actors don’t rely on personal "mannerisms"? Just watch the revered Lillian Gish, one of the earliest movie stars, in Broken Blossoms, The Scarlet Letter, or The Wind — Gish is Turner Classic Movies’ "star of the day" today — and tell me if she doesn’t have a whole array of acting "ticks." (If you don’t believe me, watch Marion Davies brilliantly perform a Gish caricature in The Cardboard Lover.) Does that mean I think Lillian Gish was a bad actress? Hardly. Mannerisms and all, Gish could be and often was an outstanding performer.

Kristen Stewart: Hot, capable, refreshing actress 

 Lillian Gish, of course, wasn’t the only one. Check out Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Edward G. Robinson, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Miriam Hopkins, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, John Gilbert, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Gene Tierney, Marilyn Monroe — the list goes on and on. All those actors had their trademark mannerisms and "limited ranges," but that didn’t prevent them from delivering superb performances in the right roles and when working with the right directors. With the appropriate guidance, Kristen Stewart should be no different. Ah, before anyone says: "How dare you have Kristen Stewart’s name next to those of Katharine Hepburn or Joan Crawford or Bette Davis?" Well, I dare. And for a very good reason: check out the Crawford, Davis, and Hepburn ("ran the gamut of emotions from A to B") notices in newspapers and magazines of the ’20s and/or ’30s, before they became legends. Kristen Stewart could well have more admirers today than they had back then. And if Stewart wishes, she could end up just as big a legend as well. In sum, I find Kristen Stewart not only a highly capable actress, but a highly refreshing one as well. And very hot and quite beautiful. Unlike psycho fans or psycho haters, I don’t feel the urgent need that others agree with me. That’s merely my personal opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree.

Driving haters nuts 

Ah, and I do hope Lie Down in Darkness gets made with Stewart as Peyton Loftis. And if so, that the movie is a success and that she gets a Best Actress Oscar nomination. That’ll drive the psycho haters up the wall. That should be fun. And while I’m at it … I’m fully aware that chances are slim, but I’m rooting for Robert Pattinson to get a Best Actor Oscar nod for Cosmopolis — since there’s no chance he’ll get one for his excellent star turn in Bel Ami. That should give well-deserved seizures to another set of haters who dismiss Pattinson merely because of his Twilight connection.

Dangers of the Morality Police

Note: For those wondering if I "approve" of what Kristen Stewart and Rupert Sanders did. All I can say, as I’ve already stated in answer to a commenter a while back, is that I’m appalled by the moralizing, judgmental, and vicious reactions to the Stewart-Sanders “affair.” Once again: Never, ever trust those taking the moral high ground in matters that don’t concern them. The Morality Police would be truly useful only if they spent their time policing their own lives. P.S.: Feel free to deride Alt Film Guide as a Twi-site if you wish. But you’ll be wrong. We get many more visits to our articles about The Dark Knight Rises, which have been quite frequent in the last month or so. In other words, "Bat-site" would be a more appropriate putdown. But let’s be real, no one complains about "guy-oriented" Batman-related articles. Fanboy stuff is to be taken seriously.


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Kristen Stewart to Attend TIFF for 'On the Road'

Kristen Stewart is getting ready to come out of seclusion.

Well, not like today, but I can exclusively reveal that Stewart will jet to the Toronto Film Festival next month to support On The Road.

TIFF announced yesterday that the movie adaptation of the classic Jack Kerouac novel would have a special presentation screening during the fest. The date will be announced on Aug. 21.

"Kristen will be there," a source says.

But will TIFF mark her first red carpet appearance since her cheating scandal erupted last month? We're not sure just yet because there's still no word if Stewart will be attending the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 6.

Stewart has yet to face the press since those now infamous photos of her and director Rupert Sanders emerged in mid-July.

Robert Pattinson, however, has been on a publicity roll this week for his new indie Cosmopolis. He's appeared on the Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Good Morning America and attended the film's premiere on Monday in New York City.

He has carefully avoided talking about the scandal.

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Gossip Cop: Rob & Kristen won't cross paths at the VMAs

There’s been a lot of buzz about a potential Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson run-in at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards.

Gossip Cop can report, however, that there will be no awkward encounter between the Twilight stars.

Sources at the Toronto International Film Festival confirm to us that Stewart will be there — not at the VMAs in Los Angeles — on September 6.

Meanwhile, Gossip Cop hears from MTV sources that Pattinson was never confirmed to attend the awards.

In other words, the Stewart-Pattinson collision the tabloids are desperate to watch just isn’t going to happen — at least not at the Staples Center next month.

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Universal Denies THR Story That Kristen Stewart Has Been Dropped From ‘Huntsman’ Sequel

BREAKING: Universal Pictures has taken the unusual step of outright denying a Hollywood Reporter story that Kristen Stewart had been dumped from the sequel to Snow White And The Huntsman. The studio issued this statement from Universal Co-Chairman Donna Langley: “We are extremely proud of Snow White And The Huntsman and we’re currently exploring all options to continue the franchise. Any reports that Kristen Stewart has been dropped are false.”

The studio, which feels it has launched two potential franchises this summer in Huntsman and the Seth MacFarlane-directed Ted, has been trying to figure out what to do with the former. As Deadline revealed yesterday, David Koepp, who’d been hired in April to script a straight sequel, isn’t putting pen to paper. The film was pricey, but its near $400 million worldwide gross puts it on the bubble for another film. Much of the creative talk internally has been to focus that on the Huntsman character played by Chris Hemsworth, who is emerging as a breakout leading man and who proved to be a bargain for the $5 million he earned for the first installment of the film. THR used all this as a referendum to stamp out the participation of Stewart because of recent events, which seemed a bit harsh and unfair, particularly since nary a word of the sequel or a spinoff has yet been written. Huntsman director Rupert Sanders is in the center of a new project bought last night by Universal, the Dean Unkefer book 90 Church: The True Story Of The Narcotics Squad From Hell, which reunites the Snow White And The Huntsman director with producers Joe Roth and Palak Patel, who’ll produce with Deborah Giarratana. source

Robert Pattinson attached to Herzog's 'Queen'

Just days before "Cosmopolis" opens in limited release, star Robert Pattinson has joined the cast of Werner Herzog's indie "Queen of the Desert," which will star Naomi Watts as English writer Gertrude Bell.

Pic will chronicle Bell's life as a writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political attache for the British Empire. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford at the turn of the 20th century, she traveled through the Middle East, defining the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Pattinson is attached to play T.E. Lawrence, a British Army officer whose writing earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, on whom David Lean's classic 1962 epic is based. Lawrence was a good friend to Bell over the years, as the duo helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in Jordan and Iraq.

Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan (Herzog's "Rescue Dawn") are producing the pic, which is aiming to start production in late fall.

Outside of the "Twilight" franchise that catapulted him to fame, Pattinson has avoided blockbusters to work on challenging indie projects with acclaimed directors. After wrapping Francis Lawrence's adaptation of "Water for Elephants" and the lusty period pic "Bel Ami," Pattinson chose to work with David Cronenberg on "Cosmopolis," which opens Friday. Thesp is set to star opposite Guy Pearce in David Michod's Aussie drama "The Rover," as well as the indie thriller "Mission: Blacklist," which chronicles the hunt for Saddam Hussein.

Pattinson is repped by WME, 3 Arts Entertainment, Curtis Brown Group and attorney Robert Offer.

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Kristen has dropped out of SWATH2

Universal reconceives the follow-up to focus on Chris Hemsworth's character as writer David Koepp exits.

Universal has decided to shelf its planned Snow White and the Huntsman sequel and is instead focusing on a solo Huntsman movie starring Chris Hemsworth. Kristen Stewart will not be invited to return if the follow-up goes forward.

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the sequel to June's Snow White, which starred Stewart, Hemsworth and Charlize Theron, is being reconceived as a spinoff movie. It's unclear whether director Rupert Sanders will return, though one source with ties to the production says he will. However, screenwriter David Koepp, who had been hired to pen the continuation of the original film, is being settled out of his rich contract, according to sources, as the project is being transformed into something other than the movie that Koepp had been hired to write.

"The studio is currently exploring options to continue the franchise," a Universal spokeswoman says.

The move comes in the wake of Stewart, 22, and the married Sanders, 41, apologizing publicly for a romantic affair after compromising photos of the duo were published in July. (Stewart was dating her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson.) While it might have been awkward for Stewart and Sanders to reunite for a sequel, it is not clear why the decision to move forward without Stewart was made. Universal did not respond to a request for comment.

It is highly unusual for Hollywood studios to drop stars of franchises between the first and second installments. The original plan, according to sources, was to make two films featuring the Snow White character and a third film spinning off the Huntsman, similar to how Fox's X-Men series has spun off Wolverine.

It's far from clear whether a Snow White follow-up will ever get made. The movie was a modest hit for Universal, grossing $389.2 million worldwide on a budget of about $170 million. But Stewart, one of Hollywood's top stars thanks to the Twilight franchise, commands a hefty salary. Declining to pick up her option would shave millions from the budget of a second movie.

Universal is looking for a new writer, and insiders hope to start filming in July when Hemsworth, who also stars in Marvel's Thor series, becomes available.

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