Since his Twilight days, Robert Pattinson has been on a roll, appearing in films like Remember Me, Good Time, and The Lighthouse. However, one of his underappreciated roles during his recent comeback was in Antonio Campos’ 2020 thriller, The Devil All the Time, which was released on Netflix in 2020.
The 37-year-old Tenet star had a lot of room to maneuver as a corrupt preacher in Campos’ 2020 thriller crime drama film. Pattinson’s performance walked the fine line between being outrageous and actually freaky. The dialect he used throughout the film may play a significant role in that.
To put it mildly, his performance in The Devil All the Time called for a little more than just switching from a typical American accent, as he had to do in The Batman.
Not only did Pattinson use a novel technique to change his accent for the movie, but he also kept his arrival on set a major surprise for the cast and crew.
Robert Pattinson Angered the Director by Turning Down His Request
Antonio Campos has helmed the 2020 Southern Gothic psychological thriller crime drama, The Devil All the Time. He assembled such great talent and made them perform as if it were their final day on earth. Robert Pattinson was one of the actors in the movie who mostly amazed the audience. He portrayed a pastor named Preston Teagardin.
Tom Holland and Pattinson both had to learn a new dialect, but the latter went one step further in his training. To their surprise, before the cameras even started rolling, the cast and crew had no idea what to expect from the Remember Me star.
The director, Antonio Campos also had no knowledge of what Pattinson’s voice would sound like.
When Campos finished writing the first draft of the script, Pattinson was in New York City filming Good Time, as the director stated in his interview with Insider. He once asked the 37-year-old actor, after handing him the script:
“Who do you want to play? Rob said right away, ‘I want to play that guy Teagardin. That guy seems like he would be fun to play.’”
Campos was unsure of how Pattinson would sound even though he knew he would not be using his real English accent for the part. Other actors sent recordings of their voices they were practicing with a dialect coach as filming drew closer, but the Little Ashes actor was not one of them.
“Rob was impossible to get dialect coaching. He just didn’t want to do it. He was just adamant about figuring it out on his own.”
Robert Pattinson Surprised The Director On The First Day On Set
One of Robert Pattinson‘s most intense scenes was shot on the first day of filming The Devil All the Time. His character, Preston Teagardin, was seen seducing a young churchgoer in the first scene. And this was the first time the actor was going to reveal his incredibly distinctive accent to the director and the entire cast in that scene.
Antonio Campos told The Insider:
“That was the first time I heard his voice and saw the character in person.”
In the scene, Pattinson was convincing Lenora Lafferty (Eliza Scanlen) to remove her blouse while he prayed. His voice got even higher, more powerful, and ominous in other scenes when he was preaching.
Did Campos, however, ever worry that he would not like Pattinson’s accent when the actor would reveal the voice? The director said:
“I don’t get worried about those things.”
He continued:
“There was no way in my mind that he wasn’t going to come on set with something bad. I might not have dug it, but it wasn’t going to be bad. I’d rather have someone come with something weird that’s a choice than something that isn’t thought out. So I knew he would come with something interesting.”
Critics gave The Devil All the Time mixed to positive reviews, praising the acting (especially that of Pattinson and Tom Holland), but criticizing the dark tone and film’s length.
The Devil All the Time can be streamed on Netflix.
Source- Insider
