Robert Pattinson found himself struggling with a scene in his upcoming film The Drama—until Zendaya stepped in to help.
In a March interview with the French magazine Premiere, Pattinson, 38, recalled preparing for a scene with his co-star in the Kristoffer Borgli-directed film.
“We had a scene together in it that was driving me crazy,” said the Mickey 17 star about Zendaya, 28. “I was desperately looking for its meaning, to the point of writing pages and pages of textual analysis… I ended up calling Zendaya the night before shooting the scene in question.”
Pattinson continued, “I shared my doubts with her, I spoke for two hours, and blah blah blah, and after a while, very calmly, she finally made me understand that the line just said what it meant to say, that there was no hidden meaning.”
Prior to that realization, the British actor admitted, “There I was going crazy for three days…. I tend to bang my head against walls. Sometimes for no reason.”
Produced by Ari Aster, The Drama also stars Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim.
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya
The romance comedy-drama “centers on a couple whose romance takes an unexpected turn before their wedding.” The film, distributed by A24, has yet to receive a release date.
Pattinson also reflected on his tendency to overanalyze scripts, a process he described as an integral part of his approach to acting. “I tend to stumble over the meaning of things,” he said. “To the point of overdoing it, trying to solve mysteries that aren’t really mysteries.”
When asked about playing characters with a “victim side,” Pattinson acknowledged, “My character from Twilight had a bit of that… I wonder where it comes from. An unconscious need for punishment? A repressed masochistic desire?”
To balance that pattern, he hinted that his next role could be “a character who is very self-confident.”
Pattinson is currently making headlines for his leading role in Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi satire Mickey 17, now in theaters.
His upcoming projects include Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love, opposite Jennifer Lawrence, as well as Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey, where he will once again share the screen with Zendaya, alongside Tom Holland, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, and Anne Hathaway.
