Here are the full production notes of LIFE. There are a lot of quotes from Rob about the movie, his character and the cast&crew and comments about Rob from director Anton Corbijn, co-stars Dane DeHaan and Joel Edgerton, screenwriter Luke Davies and procucers Iain Canning and Christina Piovesan.
Since it's a long read the "casting" section - where you can find most of Rob's quotes - is at the top of the post. Right after that, the full production notes - great read with lots of details about the story and characters.
In this post you'll find:
Rob's quotes - bold |
quotes about Rob - bold and italics
CASTING
Robert Pattinson plays photographer Dennis Stock. He was attracted to the project as
“an interesting period in history and an interesting take on such a massive character as James Dean.” Pattinson says,
“I read the script for quite a long time before I decided to do it,” and he was impressed by the
“elegant, poetic telling of the story.” The idea of co-starring with an actor his own age was also appealing, and Robert met with Luke Davies and Anton Corbijn to discuss the film. However, he says,
“My decision was so dependent on who was playing Jimmy.” Robert notes that a director of Anton’s calibre would not have cast a mere “James Dean look-alike,” but he wasn’t fully committed until Dane DeHaan came on board. (As for the idea of playing James Dean himself, Robert laughs:
“Oh no. Not in a million years. Dane’s brave.”)
And just as Anton and the producers knew they wanted DeHaan, they were equally convinced of Pattinson’s part in the film. Anton recalls,
“Rob was quickly on the horizon for me, and after we met I didn’t meet anyone else for that role.” The director also liked that Robert and Dane
“are such different actors, and that’s a great thing for the roles they play” since the characters contrast
“and you can imagine they could be friends because they’re different and that’s interesting in friendships—you offer the other person something that they don’t have.”
Writer Luke Davies said the casting was
“dream news.” He describes Pattinson’s performance in The Rover as
“incredible,” and he knew Robert would be perfect for the part of Dennis. And Dane DeHaan comments,
“I really respect Rob’s bravery in jumping into films like this. He continues to challenge himself as an artist, and I’m glad I could go on this particular journey with him.”
Iain Canning observes that Pattinson
“is not interested in following a sort of matinee idol concept, he really wants to play characters that are multi-layered and complicated.” Canning finds it
“very interesting that Robert Pattinson’s playing a photographer taking a photograph of somebody who is on the cusp of stardom given what has happened to him in his life and his early fame through the Twilight films.” Christina Piovesan remarks on the circumstance as well:
“As a young actor who has been at the center of all these photos all the time, now he gets to play the other side. It’s so exciting.”
Robert took the photographic element of his role seriously. Iain says,
“Rob has been obsessed about the details of the photography and getting it right.” Robert discusses that attention to his character’s art:
“A few months before production, I started shooting on the same Leica that Stock had.” He describes traditional photography as a dying art and says,
“There’s something quite gentle about it compared to digital photography because you can’t force a picture. You can’t shoot as if you’re on an iPhone and just put a filter on it afterwards.” Robert even went to the Leica office in London for guidance but says,
“it takes a long time to be able to take even okay pictures, let alone good ones.” Still, he wanted to understand his character’s world, both the professional and personal experiences.
Canning remarks that
“In embodying the role, Rob has grappled with how important it is to understand the emotional dynamics of Dennis at the time, to understand that it was an era whereby men of twentyseven were expected to have settled down, to be living a certain life, and Dennis Stock wasn’t living that life.” Dennis was struggling with where he fits in in the world. Canning remarks on the energy Robert brings to his performance,
“a beautiful mix of empathy” and “vulnerability” in his character’s resistanceto “the expectations of settling down and living your life in a certain way” and “how emotionally complicated it is to be a good father.” The character is grappling with the price of success and weighing it against the value he placed on fatherhood.
Robert was intrigued by the conflict and Stock’s rejection of his parental role:
“I liked that Dennis Stock is written as being quite a bad dad. Regardless of the period or of James Dean, in a movie you don’t normally see a guy who had a kid pretty young and thinks it’s restricting his life as an artist, or whatever it is that he wants to be, and is very open about it. It’s quite frankly dealt with in the script.” Pattinson adds,
“the idea of having a seven-year-old kid is interesting for me. That doesn’t happen very often for people my age.”
Dennis also questions his professional role. Robert says,
“He was a step above a paparazzi and forced for financial reasons to be a commercial photographer, and he doesn’t really have any artistic flexibility in his work. He just does what he’s told, and it’s kind of suffocating him. He’s been in L.A. for a while and is beginning to think that he’s wasting his life. He’s approaching thirty and he hasn’t proven anything, doesn’t have any money, and he’s abandoned his family in New York.” At the same time, says Robert, Dennis has a degree of professional status.
“The world wasn’t so saturated in images of celebrity, so the images in LIFE magazine were heightened, and they weren’t trying to knock celebrities down in the photos. There was a fascination for people, and I think the subject could trust the photographer a lot more.”
But gaining James Dean’s trust was still part of Dennis’ challenge. Ultimately Jimmy gave Dennis a lot of access, but it took time. The effort was worth it. Robert says,
“Dennis realized how famous Jimmy was going to become quicker than Jimmy did.” It was a great professional opportunity for him, though Robert says,
“I think Dennis’s biggest problem is he can’t appreciate his own work. He was taking good photos before he met Jimmy, but he just didn’t regard them as anything worthwhile and wasn’t being rewarded for them.” The photo assignment was going to bring Dennis acclaim, but perhaps more importantly, at a personal level,
“because Jimmy likes him and gives him approval of the photos, it allows him to think of himself as an artist because he respects Jimmy’s work so much.”
Full Production Notes
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