It’s no secret that it took a while to convince Robert Pattinson to play Chris Hansen in Lance Oppenheim’s film. Prime time. However, the director reveals how he bribed the actor to take on the role.
Pattinson initially joined the film only as a producer, but Oppenheim recently said Vulture that he used Pattinson’s Zyn addiction to convince him to play the To catch a predator host.
“Rob, at the time, was struggling with a Zyn addiction,” the filmmaker said, referring to the brand of nicotine pouches. At that time, there was also a shortage of Zyn in the United States, so Oppenheim came up with the idea of recruiting a friend in Canada to send 200 cartridges to Pattinson’s home in Los Angeles.
Following the special delivery, Oppenheim also released the latest version of the Prime time script with a letter that began “Dear Chris Han-Zyn.” Pattinson eventually agreed to play the lead role.
“It was like LeBron (James) announcing he was joining the Heat,” the director added.
Prime time has been in the works for years, as screenwriter Ajon Singh previously opened up about The Hollywood Reporter about the struggle to get anyone in Hollywood to read his initial script. That was until The Odyssey The star grabbed it and wanted to zoom with Singh.
“They got the script,” Singh recalled of the call with Pattinson and his producing partner Brighton McCloskey. “It was the most rewarding thing, maybe in my entire career. They simply responded to it in a specific and thematic way.
Prime time recounts the intense production, ethical dilemmas and media sensationalism behind To catch a predatorwhich took place from 2004 to 2007.
Once Oppenheim signed on to direct, he and Singh worked together on a plan, which included rewriting Hansen’s character, to convince Pattinson to accept the role. “A lot of those early stages were trying to convince Rob to star in the film instead of just producing,” Singh said. THR.
Despite the actor’s busy schedule, which included filming Die my love, The drama And The OdysseyPattinson found the new version of the Prime time character too convincing to resist.
“There was something about the design of the show and the alchemy (of) what Chris Hansen was doing that created something completely unpredictable,” said the Dusk former student already said it THR. “I wanted to find out what it was. As I continued my research, I became more and more interested in playing a character who was trying to figure out what this ineffable chemistry was, in real time, while simultaneously becoming, unexpectedly, incredibly famous.”
“I watched a ton of the show, every episode of his podcast, every interview I could find,” Pattinson added. “But I knew from the first reading of the script that the character in the film was going to be a conceptual figure based on the public persona of ‘Chris Hansen,’ as he has been represented and perceived across all media and Internet culture – a reconfigured figure. egregore somehow.
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