Robert Pattinson & Willem Dafoe talk The Lighthouse | Film4 Interview Special

Marge's billion beings well I wanted to work with Robert Eggers I saw the witch and I thought well there's a talent here how did this guy do this film because there was a period film that was so easy to enter nothing pushed me out so I with him and we said let's do something together and then later he approached me and said I have the project here it is you and Rob Pattinson read it yes or no once my chamber man want will be in a wiki she's looking her living it's like any man starting new on the run I'd seen the witch Roberts previous movie like when it was in theaters I think and loved it and I wanted to walk with him I met him maybe over a couple of years about a couple of other projects and they were really great but it was I think both the parts he wanted me to do a period parts and they're both very English and there's something I get very frightened about doing that and I said quite flippantly said at the end of one of the meetings because I look basically at all I want to do is that stuff it's like really really weird and crazy and the next day he said that guy yeah my brother working on this thing I can I think if this isn't crazy enough like I don't know what to tell you and I read it and I say yeah this is this is this is pretty what health Rob Eggers he's the Freak researcher and I just know he would make a complete world and then you have this beautiful elevated language there was a real challenge and very beautiful to perform there were there were many pleasures of course you always just kind of intuitively anticipate these things but so I'm saying that in retrospect you know who knows really why I did it I was attracted to it and I say you swab it again and you swab it proper like this time and you'll be swabbing it ten times more after that in different Asia in a part every floorboard and cupboard of the sea routes and scour I'm down with your bare bleeding knuckles you do it in the fighters you do you go to every single day from every mould and nail all and suck off every speck of rust til all their nails sparkle like a sperm whale's pecker and then carpenter the whole night station back together from scrap and then do it all over again the doors and by God and by golly you do it smile and laugh cause you like it you like it cuz I says you will I said small dog it's wrong I remember just asking for burgers right at the beginning just what I thought was a pretty basic question was just like it's this stuff actually happening like or is it a magical island is and also like whose perspective is the story being told from like does to any of this is this even happening anything mmm you have to decide that for yourself it's kind of and it's kind of it's fun to play something where you don't really know even though there's only two people in it like I'm almost certain that me and William are in have an entirely different perception of the movie especially when we were shooting it Robert AGA's is probably think it's might be different maybe two so it's going to it's a pretty fun thing there's only three people in it and everyone's making something totally different you can't play backstory you can't play where you were grown up you can't play whether you're a good guy or bad guy you can play your actions and sometimes you make sure you have to direct your intentions so you are making some decisions but usually they're pretty intuitive in a simple story like this that they're pretty clear you're just using different strategies to survive this story is so elemental that that's that's the beauty of it to see when identity starts to get stripped away how this guy tries to survive and of course then we had the real parallel the tangible parabola in this horrible whether in very difficult shooting conditions it was all tied to how do you survive Titan Hulk hello with our father the cking rise from the depths full foul in his fury black waves teeming with salt foam to smother this young mouth with punch and slime to Chokey in gorging your organs teehee turned blue and bloated with builds and brine and can scream no more only when he crowned in cockle shells with slithering tentacle tail and steaming beer take up his phone beef in it armed his coral time trident screeches Vangie like in the tempest and plunges right through your gullet all right have it your way I like it cooking of course you should him in black and white you're yeah how you're lighting it is very specific that does affect you also you're not shooting coverage you've got very design shots there's no fallback position so that affects some someone your relationship to how is being recorded what how the event is realized you're aware of that you don't obsess on it be you're aware of it so if the cameras gonna be behind you for a whole shot you get a pretty good idea that they're never gonna see your face right so you're just that's information so but does it affect how you do what you're doing not really not really because you're doing what you're doing or they can see in the parts of Williams chosen as a perverse to see to him that he definitely likes parts you know like they even however dark apart as they plant there's something entertaining something kind of visit he definitely nice like naughty things and and I kind of like towards that side of things for my tastes as well and so I knew that doing stuff with them it's kind of you know you can even duel there's some really dark scenes and it'd be your sort of plant because it's kind of it's he'd get the human and it's then there's a sort of strange playfulness to all the stuff as well because that his Williams part especially could have just been so dark and and he had an a it's fit I find it very funny in it we had very different ways of working but you accepted that and you appreciate that because our roles are different and it makes sense because we're different places in our career where you know he's young enough to be my son and and how we function in the story is different so I think we worked well together because we work together but beyond that you know you deal with what's in front of you and I'm sure he feels the same way how long have we been on this rock five weeks do days help me to recommend I did this movie years ago called smart but that's where I realized you you can sort of approach a character in a movie like the same way that you're a singer approaching a song which you haven't written like you don't necessarily have to have a in-depth psychological history which you've hidden a quote at any moment like it's just feel if you keep reading the lines again and again and again you're looking for the ways that feel nice and there's there's a kind of there's a pleasure which like when you're tuning guitar strings and then the two strings get in harmony with each other that's something which you find and you can't like define what that feeling is but it's just like oh it just feels really nice and I've started to just try and do parts like that and it kind it's difficult to do it when you have to be working with like certain directors who sort of accept that approach or you just keep a secret from them you know it's it's the poetry it's the poetry that challenged us to think in different ways see things and no remember things that we've forgotten you know it's a it's a mind changer it's not just an exercise in recognition you know it's recognizing a familiar story and empathizing it and when it's best it goes beyond that it opens us to mystery and wakes us up I think that's what's great about cinema and this as as all kinds of food for that you

Channel: Film4

Views: 1,334,758

Keywords: Film 4, Film, Cinema, film4 interview, robert pattinson, robert pattinson interview, the lighthouse, robert eggers, willem da, willem dafoe, willem dafoe lighthouse, willem dafoe interview, robert pattinson lighthouse, black and white movie, the witch, horror, cannes, robert eggers director, a24, film4, interview, filmmaking, the lighthouse film, the lighthouse movie, robert eggers the witch

Id: O9ukjPF3YdA

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2020