Key Points
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Robert Pattinson’s Primetime director Lance Oppenheim said he sent the actor Zyn —and a lot of it — to convince him to play Chris Hansen.
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Oppenheim previously told Entertainment Weekly he also tried to ply the Batmanstar with gummies and more.
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Originally, Pattinson was just supposed to produce the film.
Primetime director Lance Oppenheim had an unusual way of convincing Robert Pattinson to play Chris Hansen in the film about the To Catch a Predator star.
“Rob, at the time, was grappling with a Zyn addiction,” the director told Vulture.
Oppenheim explained that there had been a shortage of the nicotine pouches in the U.S., but he was able to persuade a friend working in Canada to send the actor 200 canisters of the product. It arrived with a letter he began, “Dear Chris Han-Zyn.”
It was accompanied by a reworked script.
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In September, Oppenheim told Entertainment Weekly about some other incentives that he’d also sent over to Pattinson, who was originally only supposed to produce the project.
“There was one meeting we had about the script, and [screenwriter] Ajon [Singh] and I had stayed at his house until two in the morning, and we had brought Four Lokos and gummies and some other stuff that kind of reminded us of the show on the way over,” he said, referring to the alcoholic energy drink.
Pattinson wasn’t an immediate yes, he said.
“I think he was confused at first, but then he sort of got it, and we all sat around,” Oppenheim said. “We tried drinking the Four Lokos, but it tasted, for me at least, it was too gross. So I didn’t consume all of it.”
But Oppenheim and Singh set about rewriting the script to feature more intense “fever dream-like elements” and making the movie feel “as if it could exist alongside movies that Oliver Stone or Brian DePalma would make.”
After the movie was released in theaters last month, fans of Pattinson’s performance as the NBC journalist began sharing memes and clips of him that they said made him a contender to play the Joker, even though he’d portrayed the titular superhero in 2022’s The Batman.
When asked how he’d do at playing the Joker, Pattinson told EW, “Oh, Jesus. I mean, it’s such a great part… but Barry’s the man.”
He was referencing actor Barry Keoghan, who briefly appeared in the film opposite Pattinson’s Dark Knight as a disfigured, early-stage version of the villain locked up in Arkham asylum.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
