00:00I spent months walking around listening to that podcast and doing and repeating his voice and I
00:07remember being like a Starbucks and just totally forgotten I'm saying like the most disturbing
00:13stuff. Hi, I'm Robert Pattinson. Hi, I'm Lance Oppenheim. This is GQ Action Replay.
00:20Hey. Big night planned. How you doing? We both came into knowing what To Catch a Predator was not
00:37through the original material but through Rob through memes, me through parodies like South Park
00:43and I was like an E-bombs world devotee. I was always watching like Mad TV and stuff like that
00:48and then when I finally saw the show, I was so blown away by the way it mixed artifice and
00:55reality.
00:56You'd have like an actor, an adult actor who was playing a child and then you'd also have like
01:02props like cookies and pepperoni pizzas and these fake houses and then you'd have a really extremely
01:08seriously dangerous and frightening situation happen where someone would come into a house
01:14looking to do something really terrible. So all of that mixed in with then Chris Hansen
01:18coming in and giving one of these great catchphrase one-liners have a seat right there. The way that we
01:24went about filming this movie is again it's like 12 different camera bodies, four different camera
01:29formats. We tried to simulate the way you know when we would shoot the um the DV footage that would
01:35be
01:35the recreation the objective you know truth of the situation. We would shoot it all multi-camera live
01:41with hidden cameras and then I would go back and just drill it on the uh cinema camera over and
01:46over
01:46and over again with Rob doing this. You see how this looks right? What you do here is so interesting.
01:53We never did any rehearsal and I wanted to sort of see what he would bring to it and every
01:57day it was
01:58like the only person in the history of cinema that would be making these choices would be Rob. It's not
02:03an
02:03exact imitation of Chris Hansen from the show. We weren't necessarily interested in that. We were
02:07interested in like the essence of him and the the sort of mysterious power he has over. So every
02:12time you do every take would be radically different. Even when you see it in the contrasted in the
02:19reality show format he has a sort of natural like elegance. It makes him stand out so much when he
02:25has
02:25like really nicely cut suits and there's just something about his body language that um everybody
02:30just separates him from it and it's like he and he's good at knowing where his camera is and like
02:35where his
02:35angles are and stuff and that was we were trying to kind of get that. I'm just here to meet
02:39her. Who?
02:40Your daughter. My daughter? What makes you think it's my daughter? It's like his weapons of choice
02:48are his words, the way he says words, the way he moves with his hands. I remember even when we
02:53were
02:53location scouting because this the staircase was something that we determined like when we got to
02:59that house and we saw it and then I remember being like we have to rewrite this to get that
03:02in there
03:02and I remember you were like are you sure? Like did he ever do this? And I was like I
03:06don't think
03:06let's just focus on what could be coolest in the moment for the movie and have him kind of
03:10He definitely came out of curtains a bunch of times though. Of course. We always find it kind of
03:14interesting because coming out from behind the curtain they literally only had a curtain there
03:19because it's the only way to hide the camera because there's nothing there's no like kind of mystery to
03:24but then kind of taking that little element of just practicality and saying like oh no this is
03:29this is part of the show and I think I think it's a question of just when it's I think
03:33it's a
03:33a facet of having watched so many episodes of this so many times and it's suddenly every single element
03:38becomes iconic. I remember listening because he has a lot of episodes of his podcast where they review
03:43the old old things and I spent months walking around listening to that podcast and and doing and
03:52repeating his voice and I remember being like a Starbucks and just totally forgotten I'm saying
03:58like the most disturbing stuff just out in public and you suddenly see people look at you and you're
04:05like like it's really it always almost impossible to explain as well when you're like no I'm just
04:11doing an accent. I'm trying to learn something. There is something interesting I mean the other thing
04:16that you're doing with the body language and it it it moves over the course of the movie but you
04:22know
04:22the film is really about what this kind of work this kind of darkness does to a person who's in
04:29it 24
04:297 and that kind of almost like um PTSD or the sort of stress that that that embodies him it's
04:37the
04:37physicality changes always depending on where you are in the movie the only place you ever seem fully
04:43relaxed is in the things you know when when you're when you're with the guys and you're um in full
04:49control hey hey
04:59yeah it's you Chris Hammond right yes one of my favorite moments in the film and just making the
05:08film was getting to work with Creed uh Brattu who's uh from the office and has a band and it's
05:15just a
05:16unique individual in his uh own right I always thought there was something menacing about Creed
05:22in the office and I was surprised no one had ever cast him as like um kind of a intense
05:28seriously intense person if I was you I'd just fucking kill those guys beat the living shit out of
05:40bare hands this was the thing which Lance was like just say that thing from the interview which
05:47you watched like six months ago and I'm like I don't remember but like I'm really glad we did it
05:55this
05:55is a thing we found late into the editing process tonight I'm going to tell you how to make that
06:00not
06:00happen right yeah and they just said okay green lit I would do this thing a lot with Rob and
06:10he'd get
06:11annoyed on set he would like deliver just like one walloping performance after another each take
06:17and then I'd be like he'd be like okay great done I'd be like actually let's just um let's do
06:22like 20
06:23minutes of just lines from other parts of the movie here there actually remember that thing we
06:28listened to like 20 days ago let's just throw that in and I just would read it off and uh
06:32I could see
06:33him boiling over but then he would do it and it kind of encouraged me to keep uh needling you
06:37and
06:38especially because Creed Creed is an extraordinary improviser as well and he was just coming up with
06:43stuff just like with absolute ease I think maybe what I do is a little worse
06:56there's this interesting tension I think in a weird way that this scene illustrates it was
07:01probably one of the few scenes that was that um existed in the original version of the screenplay
07:06that like made it fully into um the film which was this concept of how do you maintain um being
07:15a journalist and a celebrity ultimately and an entertainer and also that you can't control
07:21what your audience likes about the thing you're making it's kind of the dichotomy between when
07:28you're very insulated in the world of entertainment and then suddenly you're seeing what it is that it's
07:34actually uh generating which was really interesting I do think one of the things that made him and
07:40this show so successful is that it's like a new form version of of the pillory or like a whipping
07:45post and specifically in 2006 this was like uh there was so much rage and anger and there still exists
07:52that very thing in society today and the show proved to be this amazing receptacle for all of that
07:58in a weird way you know if you go back thousands of years the pillory there was always a someone
08:02that
08:02was administering the blows to somebody that was at the whipping post and chris hansen is that person
08:07and I think like in the scene he's talking to someone that would have been in the audience of
08:11that a thousand years ago yeah and you're doing two things at the same time you're you're you are
08:16the arbiter of justice in some ways but you're still also thinking like I've got a deadline to make
08:23this show and I need to make it a good show I have to that's literally why I'm here to
08:29try and do the
08:29mental gymnastics to make it all make sense because you're not just doing a performance it's your life
08:34it's like that is you're not an actor in a lot of ways you're literally but you're being kind of
08:40forced
08:41to behave as if you're promoting a movie as a performer and saying like telling everyone like
08:46you should watch it you should tune in and it's a really really tough position to be in well before
08:51the script ever came my way almost two years before I had shown uh Rob like a work in progress
08:56cut of my film sperm worlds and the next day I went out for a beer with uh Brighton McCloskey
09:02one of the producers and I showed her something that my wife had gotten which was a cameo from
09:06Chris Hansen this is like three years ago before there was any script or anything and I was like
09:11this is so fascinating to me this is a guy that is a crusading journalist I remember him from growing
09:17up who has now adopted this like media persona that he is responsible for but also has been created
09:24around him almost like he's adopted the meme of himself and he's on cameo and you could pay him
09:28$30 they'll tell you have a seat it crystallized this thought of for me of just what does it mean
09:33to balance those those two uh things that report like reportage of an extremely serious subject
09:41with also becoming and adopting this almost entertaining uh uh version of yourself this persona of
09:49yourself you become a mean he's got to go with it there's no choice
10:01I remember doing Batman and thinking you know there'd been amazing interpretations of the character
10:06and I was just trying to find out what is the thing that hasn't really been found I read so
10:11many of
10:12the graphic novels and found this one called Shaman and that was all about the kind of metaphysical
10:17aspects of like what the symbolism of the specific bat means and like and just trying to abstract the
10:24idea rather than saying like yeah it's that we're taking away the logic of becoming Batman and saying
10:29like no I'm becoming this other thing and it's not just to scare the criminals it's for yourself
10:34and it's because you feel a a profound connection with this this creature that you've created which you
10:41then think you're you're becoming or that it truly is you even though you've constructed it yourself
10:46I'm doing so many conversations and things in this outfit and I'm like you have to believe
10:54that it's not an outfit and uh and it's just your skin um and to kind of I was trying
11:01to draw a lot
11:01from from yeah that one comic I thought was very helpful how do you develop the voice because this is
11:06the first time we hear your Batman voice a lot of wandering around Bayswater in the middle of the
11:13night I'm like imagining to myself and uh it was very cold and in January and I was trying to
11:21do
11:21something where it's it's just like a profound sadness more than anything else that which I don't
11:26think because that was the one thing which hadn't really been touched on that much um in the other
11:31in the other movies
11:38I'm vengeance
11:39I remember saying that just by myself in the massive theater at Warner Brothers
11:44I was just with I was just with um Dylan Clark the producer
11:47I had to say Tara I was like
11:50a lot
11:51I was like that is not how it felt when you're doing the fight
11:57we did the wide of that entire fight a bunch of times I knew how to do that entire fight
12:04from beginning to end it's quite fun because you can't see anything so I'm literally just punching
12:08people in the face and all that and you're hearing all the stunt guys be like it's cool it's cool
12:12it's
12:13cool just keep going keep going I'm just like ah just punching everybody do you think if you got
12:18into like a real fist fight could you kick the guy's ass if with that you feel when I was
12:23training
12:23all the time for the for doing a lot of stuff on that you really feel like you can and
12:27that that's when
12:28you get into a dangerous situation ironically when you put the suit on it makes you're pretty much
12:33anybody can beat you in a fight you can just push them over it's almost impossible to stand up again
12:37there's one thing they're like the the moment of the uncontrollable rage they're like the last bit
12:42before it's like you're like oh that's so fun you're just repeating that over and over again
12:46as you're going through each take of that or is that like was that like a magical I think that
12:50wasn't even in the script the scene was I come out and they go who are you and they say
12:54I'm vengeance
12:55and then beat everybody up and I'm like nah you shouldn't even respond you beat everybody up and
12:59then I was saying you do once the guy's basically unconscious we whisper it in his ear so as he's
13:05drifting out of consciousness it goes into his dreams wow wow that's amazing
13:15what is the king without his kingdom
13:19what is the king without his property
13:27he's free that idea that what is a king without his kingdom
13:31you know in the beginning of the series he says he's free at the end he says he's nothing
13:35that was always sort of the animating tension of this whole like fantasy worlds where you have a
13:40guy who's cultivated it created it thousands of people live inside of it it's a very successful
13:47business and yet at the beginning of this he wants nothing to do with it he wants to
13:53get rid of it and I love this idea that we could do in this whole thing that was like
13:58it felt like this like emotional IMAX or something because every person in this world when they would
14:03hear that he like didn't want anything to do with it they'd be like what and so I was like
14:07I need to
14:07like I need to do something that allow oh wait watch this you're not going to believe this
14:15we got like three show times I mean we're all stealing from all that jazz we could just admit it
14:19it's okay one of the things that was so fun about this was how do you like not objectively
14:26represent reality how do you like I didn't want to be like a you know a fly on the wall
14:31I wanted
14:32to like inhabit it and follow it and emotionally experience it like everyone else did and make
14:38everything like this show is is sort of more about like office drama and all these people who want to
14:44be uh the next king there's a succession drama going on but I liked photographing it in a way that
14:50felt
14:50really like a renaissance drama plot or something that existed as part of the world that they
14:56constantly pretend in and weirdly I'd say this out of anything I've made like this prepared me to work
15:02with you probably because every person who exists in that world they're they're all actors and they're
15:07all very talented actors and they were playing versions of themselves in this documentary that
15:12things we were photographing were real but the way I was having to shoot it required a lot more
15:17collaboration than maybe like a traditional documentary would me and writer McCloskey
15:22who I produced stuff with we were trying to figure out what to do with the primetime script
15:28and then Brighton suggested Lance I'm like ah that's kind of perfect there's very few directors who
15:34actually even have like a like a kind of an idea of style like aesthetic style I always saw the
15:42movie
15:42how I wanted to do it was something like how Oliver Stone did Nixon or something like that
15:47where you kind of it's a sort of a biopic but it's kind of it's it's fantastical at the same
15:54time
15:54and when I was thinking like with with Lance's movies like there's so many elements of the characters
15:58he's attracted to where it's like you're finding someone who's an ordinary like I mean Chris Hansen
16:06at the end of it is a news reporter who somehow has been uh co-opted by his audience and
16:12then kind
16:13of elevated to to a level beyond I think what he would have ever imagined for himself and he's just
16:20Lance is really great at kind of portraying the difficulties of characters and experiencing that
16:24should we do it together nice thanks for watching
