Highlights
- Robert Pattinson calls his Primetime performance a massive compliment, despite Chris Hansen’s vocal criticism of it.
- The actor claims he was simply trying to make Hansen look cool and loves seeing young fans cosplaying as the TV host.
- Pattinson says the psychological thriller explores humanity’s dark obsession with public shame and reality television.
Robert Pattinson is begging you to understand that his turn as the ultimate 2000s TV vigilante was an act of pure, unadulterated fandom. The British actor just addressed Chris Hansen‘s vocal criticism of Primetime, the buzzy new A24 psychological thriller chronicling the chaotic 2006 creation of To Catch a Predator.
Hansen recently slammed the Lance Oppenheim-directed film as being entirely “detached from reality”. The former NBC host even threw down the gauntlet, inviting Pattinson and Oppenheim onto his podcast to hash it out.
Pattinson hasn’t RSVP’d to that podcast invite yet, but he finally broke his silence on the red carpet at the BFI London Film Festival. His defense strategy? Utter adoration.
“It’s weird. I was trying to make him, I was trying to make him cool,” Pattinson confessed to reporters. “He is cool. I mean, it’s like, I’m like a fan.”
Pattinson insists the film is an atmospheric mood piece, brushing off accusations of character assassination. “It’s a portrait, and it’s not an indictment of Chris as a person at all,” he explained.
The actor noted that Primetime isn’t aiming for biographical perfection. “[It] was never supposed to be like ‘oh this is who he is.’ It’s the feeling you get from watching a show in a certain period of time and trying to encompass a lot of other different things into that story.”
But Hansen clearly isn’t vibing with the Hollywood homage. Pattinson chalked the friction up to subjective taste. “And I think in some ways it’s like an aesthetic thing, where you kind of, what I think is cool might not be cool to other people.”
For Pattinson, the film is less about Hansen and more about our collective obsession with public shame. “Part of the thesis of the film is this ancient practice – you had the public square, you had the pillories, you had an executioner,” he philosophized. “It reveals something about humanity. I think more than anything else.”
The actor fully admits to feeding into that toxic reality TV loop himself. “At the end of the day, everyone was watching To Catch A Predator and it was one of the highest-rated shows on television,” he said. “I was watching it. So, it’s sort of hypocritical for me to go out and say people shouldn’t be watching.”
Despite the real-life tension, Pattinson is hyper-fixated on the cultural revival his performance is sparking. He is thrilled by the chaotic energy of Gen Z fans at early screenings.
“I think it’s amazing when you see really, really young audiences and people are turning up dressed as Chris Hansen and everybody’s doing Chris Hansen impressions,” Pattinson gushed.
He sees this bizarre cosplay phenomenon as a full-circle moment. “It’s at the same age that I discovered him and then [they] go back and look at his work and rediscover or discover all the kind of important work he’s doing as well.”
The Batman star remains completely mesmerized by Hansen’s original on-camera aura. “There’s something magnetic about his presence,” Pattinson observed.
He ultimately credits the host’s bizarre charisma for the show’s enduring legacy. “There’s a strange alchemy — something he’s doing is the reason people are still talking about that show 20 years later.”
Pattinson still desperately wants the real host’s blessing. “Obviously, I hope he likes the movie. There’s something electrifying about him,” he stated.
He left reporters with a final plea to the defensive TV veteran. “I would hope the amount of inspiration his character has given a lot of people for years is some kind of compliment.”
