High Life, the first English language film directed by the acclaimed Claire Denis, opens in limited release today and is getting excellent reviews, in particular for lead actor Robert Pattinson who’s been on a tear the last couple of years with a string of impressive performances in Good Time, The Lost City of Z, Damsel, and now this, playing an ex-con on board a spacecraft where scientists are conducting sex experiments. I mean, it’s obviously more complicated than that – a meditation on life, death, and humanity – but it is a continuation in what has been an interesting series of offbeat character for Robert since Twilight, not unlike what we’ve seen from Jake Gyllenhaal. There are parallels to be made here for sure. Is it me or are they also starting to look alike?
In addition to acting, Robert also sings on the tindersticks song “Willow” that plays during the end credits.
He’s done this before, for the Twilight soundtrack, it was a song called “Let Me Sign”. But he told USA Today that this doesn’t mean he’s going to release an album or anything:
"I used to play gigs all the time and have always said I'd love to again," Pattinson says. "But there's a strange stigma with actors trying to do music, and it is something quite frightening to me. I've learned how to deal with criticism in film, but I’m very vulnerable to it in music. I don’t know whether I’m willing to take the hits – I prefer to have an audience of one or two (friends)."
He also talked to USA Today about being cast in Christopher Nolan’s new film. As it always is with Christopher Nolan projects, nobody knows anything about it and even RP doesn’t have a copy of the script:
"I got locked in a room to read the script – I don't have it myself," he says. "I've been a little wary of doing big movies for years and years, but there's just something about Chris Nolan's stuff. He seems like the only director now who can do what is essentially a very personal, independent movie that has huge scale. I read the script and it's unreal."
Speaking of doing “big movies”, that wariness of course is because of Twilight and he seems to be recovering from that experience so… what about those Batman rumours? Unfortunately I don’t think anyone’s asked him that on this press tour but as I said before, I don’t think he’d be the worst choice and yet I also don’t know that he needs it. He’s good for money and, to go back to Jake Gyllenhaal, who was always in the mix for superhero casting, what might be more interesting for him at some point is to play the villain…although that’s starting to get a little derivative now too. Eventually it’s going to become “radical” to be the hero and not the antihero.
Here’s RP in New York yesterday promoting High Life. Also… I think I blanked on these shots of him at Paris Fashion Week in January supporting Dior and Kim Jones. Avant-garde Robert Pattinson is always a delight:
