GETRUNTAH

New Rob Interview with Filmkrant Netherlands

“I always feel rather uncomfortable”

First Cronenberg, Michôd, Herzog, now Corbijn, very soon Gray, Korine and Denis: they all want Robert Pattinson. Why? What is the appeal of this teen idol?

By Kees Driessen

The penny dropped when I watched Cosmopolis (2012). The first time the film by David Cronenberg was disappointing to me. In ‘Vrij Nederland’ [dutch paper] I called him ‘bloodless – painful role for leading actor Robert Pattinson, who after his global success as a vampire in the insignificant Twilight series likes to sink his teeth into more serious material, but as autistic financial genius … he can hardly show a more emotional range [to the audience].

The second time I watched the movie I saw it. Then I understood that casting Pattinson was a great, even brilliant move. The hollow falsity of Cosmopolis is not only the reflection of the virtual financial system that is criticized in the film, but also of its leading character and, partly, its leading actor.

Robert Pattinson (London, 1986) plays in Cosmopolis a stunningly handsome stockbroker with huge financial success at a much too young an age, looking through the windows of his limousine with a detachment as if they were monitors, and fears that his inner self is rotting away (for which he gets daily anal examinations). You can almost call it typecasting, as a vampire with world fame.

Uncomfortable in his own skin

There are more great arthouse directors. David Michôd cast Pattinson in The Rover (not seen in 2014); just as Cronenberg, again, in Maps to the Stars (2014); Herzog, in a supporting role as T.E. Lawrence’s otherwise failed Queen of the Desert (2015); and soon James Gray in The Lost City of Z, Claire Denis in her yet untitled sci-fi movie and – very exciting – Harmony Korine, alongside James Franco, Idris Elba and Al Pacino in The Trap.

And now starring in Anton Corbijn’s Life, as a beginning photographer Dennis Stock, maker of the most famous photographs of James Dean. Where Cronenberg, as usual, in Cosmopolis magnified Pattinson’s character metaphorical and philosophical, the down to earth Corbijn uses [Rob] more realistic but nevertheless similar: as someone who feels uncomfortable in his skin, is keen to get recognition and feels a substantial distance to the world. “He’s an actor who wants to prove himself as an actor who plays a photographer who wants to prove himself as a photographer. Therefore the casting seemed like a great idea,” says a grinning Corbijn in Berlin.

Shy

Pattinson himself too is grinning a lot in Berlin. Many apologetic smiles too – like his character. Pattinson seems extremely nice, but is at the same time strikingly shy for someone of his fame and notoriety. Embarrassed BY his fame.

If he, as an actor often wanders outside his comfort zone? “I have no comfort zone at all haha! I always feel always rather uncomfortable.” He seems to mean it. “But so is my character.” And they {Rob and his character Dennis Stock] have more similarities. Like Stock Pattinson doesn’t like to be photographed. He really doesn’t. He mentions it three times. He feels like it’s making him ‘smaller’, “as if they are something away from you.”

Pattinson describes his character: “What I find fascinating is that he he couldn’t feel anything, not even love, as if he was handicapped.” And “Because he’s so restrained, he feels separated from the world, he lacks the experience of a normal person. That is quite tragic…” And: “I found it interesting that he finds solace in his art.”

Later, about all the media attention on himself: “Sometimes you feel just very separated from everything. That is a little worrisome..” And about acting: “You give quite a lot of yourself away, if you really
Uncomfortable

Is Stock is a mirror of self-portrait? The thought arises. If Pattinson, like Dennis Stock and James Dean, is a tortured soul himself, I do not know. But they share at least this: Pattinson feels an uncomfortable proximity to humans and is – something that’s not easy in the world of film or during a group interview – looking for a real connection.

That’s where there’s a blend in his role as Stock, in his roles for Cronenberg, and to some degree even with TE Lawrence and Twilight’s Edward.

When asked, via James Dean, what charisma is a movie star, Pattinson stumbles over his words a minute and then laughs nervously exclaiming: “I have no idea what the f*ck I’m saying haha!”

I want to make an attempt: charisma is the attraction of someone with a seductive look and an unattainable inner self. And that is Robert Pattinson has.

Available link for download

New Rob Interview with The Guardian The Observer

It is one of this summer’s four perfect days, a Friday afternoon to boot, and London’s most smug are bunking off work and descending like fashionable, tanned zombies on Shoreditch House members’ club. Meanwhile in a joyless, north-facing, little-used room called the Library you’ll find Robert Pattinson, the 29-year-old British actor. He’s not tanned; famously, he has the pallor of an eternally youthful bloodsucker. He’s not smug either; in fact it would be hard to find someone less pleased with themselves. And he’s come to Shoreditch House today to work – to do interviews anyway, one of the least enjoyable elements of a job that he’s not convinced he’s especially good at.
Does Pattinson come here often? “Um, yeah, kind of, er. Ish,” he eventually decides on. “I used to go to the gym here until I realised that I didn’t want people to see me going to gym.” He laughs, a posh, unexpected, winning guffaw. “I was so embarrassed,” he continues. “When you’re trying to lift up your 10lb dumbbells… Word spreads.”

Pattinson is monochromatic today: white T-shirt and thin jacket; black jeans, boots and unmarked baseball cap. He has a bushy beard (our pictures were taken before he grew it). It’s the kind the Victorians favoured, with a twiddly moustache, for a part he’s currently shooting. “Oh, this is driving me insane,” he says. “Let me know if I’ve got something hanging off the side. Avocados are especially bad.” Pattinson strokes his chin: “Hmmm, yeah, avocados are not beard-friendly.”

It’s around this point, maybe a couple of minutes in, that I realise I’m going to quite like Pattinson. It is not particularly something he’s said, but his, for want of a better word, vibe. If anyone could be forgiven for being an oddball, it’s him. Any chance Pattinson had of a normal career – a normal life – vanished when he appeared, aged 22, as the vampire Edward Cullen in 2008’s Twilight. Over five films he became very rich, unpleasantly famous and kinkily lusted over. One example: last year in Las Vegas, a woman married a life-size cardboard cutout of Pattinson; on their honeymoon, she carried “him” up to the Hollywood sign.

Such attention, such unsolicited devotion, would be a brain scramble for anyone. But what’s endearing about Pattinson is that it is easy to see the kind of person he was before he became one of the most famous actors in the world. He’s a bit of a goof. He’s prone to gabbling about, say, having a gloop of avocado on his face.

In short, Pattinson doesn’t carry himself like he’s God’s gift. He remains recognisably a 20-something from suburban London whose dad sold vintage cars and whose mum was a model booker.

The most interesting thing about Pattinson these days is the career he’s curating. To oversimplify it, pretty much any director would want Pattinson in their film: he has a name that gets a project green-lit and a fanbase that means people are sure to see it. Yet he has chosen to use this power in an unconventional way. Sometimes he actively seeks out filmmakers who he admires: “There’s not a lot of them, and I like quite specific stuff.” He doesn’t demand the biggest role or for his name to be in the largest type on the film poster – though that’s usually what happens anyway. He’s worked with cult auteur David Cronenberg twice (Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars) and with Werner Herzog, as TE Lawrence in the forthcoming Gertrude Bell biopic, Queen of the Desert, alongside Nicole Kidman and James Franco. He’s just signed up to play an astronaut in Zadie Smith’s first screenplay.

And this month Pattinson stars in Anton Corbijn’s Life, a warm, perceptive film about James Dean. But Pattinson isn’t playing Dean; he is Dennis Stock, a Magnum photographer who befriended the actor in 1955 and took the iconic shot of him walking in Times Square, smoking, huddled against the rain. Pattinson insists he didn’t, even for one second, consider lobbying for the role of Dean, a role taken by Dane Dehaan.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” says Pattinson. “I guess the only reason anyone would think that is from Twilight, because people always said about ‘brooding’. I’m not entirely sure what brooding is, other than a chicken sitting on her eggs. So I’m not entirely sure why that’s considered an attractive trait.”

There are, however, intriguing parallels to be drawn between Dean and Pattinson, two of the defining stars of their eras, or at least an examination of how the nature of celebrity has changed in the 60 years between their respective peaks. In Life, Dean is caught on the cusp of fame, shortly before the release of his debut film, East of Eden (in the ensuing eight months he would shoot two more films, including Rebel Without a Cause, before dying in a car crash aged 24). The studio, Warner Bros, puts him forward for interviews and Dean mucks them up, partly through inexperience, partly through sabotage.

Pattinson certainly knows how that feels. “When the first Twilight came out, I’d definitely say dumb stuff just so I wouldn’t sound cookie-cutter or part of the machine,” he recalls. For the most part this was pretty tame, such as admitting he took a Xanax before his final audition to calm his nerves or saying that he had been drunk for a year before he landed the part, living in a “cool little ex-crack den” with his best friend, the actor Tom Sturridge. “It’s not very difficult to shock people when you can literally just swear,” Pattinson says, laughing again. “You talk about being hungover and you just see the publicity department waving their arms going: ‘Shut up! Shut up!’”

In other ways, though, Life makes it clear how much the interaction between celebrities and the media has changed. Stock, at Dean’s encouragement, follows the actor home to Indiana, to the farm where he grew up with his uncle and aunt in a Quaker household. The intimacy of their exchanges – and the photographs that relationship produced – would be unimaginable in the present day.

Pattinson concedes as much. “The idea of taking a photographer back to my family’s house… it’s just insane!” he says. “It’s not really even to do with the photographs – it might be nice to have a really good photographer do it, but it’s bringing your family into the public domain and then having to have them deal with this horrible cacophony of demons who live on the internet. That’s really ruined a lot of things, internet trolls, because no one wants to put themselves out there. Even if you can ignore it, and I don’t think anyone can really ignore it.”

There’s not anger in Pattinson’s voice, just acceptance of the uncomfortable Faustian pact he’s made for success in his chosen field. “With my sisters” – Victoria and Lizzy, both older; Lizzy, a singer, appeared on last year’s X Factor, reaching the stage where hopefuls audition at the judges’ houses – “you just bring people into something they have not asked to be part of,” he continues. “It’s impossible for you to stop it afterwards. All you can say is: ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for bringing this darkness into your life. And also you don’t get anything out of it either.’ It’s just nothing but bad, yeah.”

Plenty of people in entertainment and outside it really want to be famous. Pattinson, meanwhile, more than any public figure I’ve encountered, appears to be desperate to be less well-known than he is. The point where celebrity was useful to him is long distant. He already has more money than he knows how to spend. In Los Angeles he bought a house – “like Versailles,” he’s described it – but moved out after the paparazzi set up camp outside. He owns 17 guitars, but that’s as far as extravagances go.

“Fame is just in the way for Rob,” says Anton Corbijn, who has considerable experience of working with superstars, first as a portrait photographer and more recently as a film director. “We were shooting in a really cold winter in Toronto and there were days where it was definitely -22C and still there would be some paparazzo photographer hanging in a tree somewhere for a whole day. Even in extreme circumstances, in the middle of nowhere, he gets followed. That must be tiresome.”

Would Pattinson want to be less recognisable, then? “I don’t even think I am that famous anymore,” he says unconvincingly. “I just moved back to London and the thing that always drove me crazy in LA was photographers. You don’t even really care about having your photograph taken, but it’s the following, the trailing, knowing that you can’t escape it. But I moved back to London and it just doesn’t happen ever.”

Really? “Uh huh. Unless you’re at the Chiltern Firehouse or somewhere. That’s it. The infrastructure doesn’t exist here. And celebrity press – they are interested in different things in England. Which is wonderful!”

He might be giving us too much credit there. Pattinson’s relationships are a staple of gossip columns, especially since he split with Kristen Stewart, his Twilight co-star, in 2012. He is currently stepping out with, and almost certainly engaged to, the singer FKA Twigs – hence the return to London – but he’s learned enough to keep it on the down-low. When I raise the subject today, he replies, good-naturedly: “Oh yeah, that. I’ve just found if you never talk about stuff it’s better. But thank you.”

Pattinson’s personal experience, of enduring Twilight and coming out the other side, does seem to have left a residual interest in the smaller cogs in the machinery of Hollywood. In last year’s Maps to the Stars he played an aspiring actor and writer who is really a chauffeur and has an unlikely hook-up with a neurotic big-time actress played by Julianne Moore. In Life his character Dennis Stock witnesses up close what the movie industry is starting to do to James Dean. The lesson, in both cases, appears to be that it’s not easy to remain sane in this business.

Pattinson, though, sees it differently: it’s not that movie stars are weird; everyone is weird. “I think people are pretty extreme,” he says. “If you look at anyone’s behaviour, you meet a lot of nutcases. I can hang out with my family and it’s like a mental asylum.” He’s laughing hard now. “They’ll be like: ‘Oh, why are you saying this about us?’”

Acting, Pattinson insists, remains a learning process; he never studied it and he became Edward Cullen when he still thought he wanted to be a musician rather than an actor. This leads to a bizarrely self-deprecating estimation of his talents. Pattinson rarely watches his own performances – he has still never seen the final Twilight movie – but he does assiduously seek out negative comments on the internet. “I do read reviews to a fault, and it’s an awful thing to do,” he admits. “It’s an addiction. And you only read the bad ones, too, just to foster hatred, self-hatred, self-loathing. Yeah, weird habit.”

“I don’t know if it’s insecurity, but he’s far more gifted than he gives himself credit for,” says Corbijn. “Obviously success came relatively easy to Rob with the Twilight series, and ever since then he’s taken on left-of-centre roles to prove – I guess to himself – that he is an actor and not just a famous actor. That’s really courageous of him, but he underestimates his own quality. He’s nervous. I think he beats himself up a lot – unnecessarily so, in my eyes.”

Corbijn describes “an inner turmoil” he sees in Pattinson. Does Pattinson recognise that in himself? “Err, ha ha, yeah, sort of,” he replies. “Sometimes. I think everyone does, really, but I definitely feel like I need to prove something, and I’m not entirely sure what it is. So that’s probably what my turmoil is.”

Pattinson goes silent for a few seconds. “Confusion!” he eventually exclaims. “I’m definitely very confused. I spent basically my whole 20s having no idea what was going on. And I do feel now that I’m gaining a little bit of perspective.”

The analysis session is almost over. Pattinson walks over to an upright piano by the window and idly plays a few notes. He started taking lessons again recently for the first time since he was a teenager; he thought he would be more enthusiastic this time, but practice is still a drudge. He closes the lid and finishes a thought from a couple of minutes before.

“In a lot of ways, I’m quite proud that I’m still getting jobs,” Pattinson says. “To go from starting a job by accident when you’re 16 and maintaining it somehow and learning how to do it on the job as well. Because of falling into a job, you always feel like you’re a fraud, that you’re going to be thrown out at any second. So yeah, the main thing I do hope is to gradually get rid of that and really be doing what you want to be doing without feeling like you’re faking it. Does that make sense?”

With his intriguing, ambitious post-Twilight career, it is making less and less sense, but it says a lot about Pattinson that he still thinks it.

Life is out on 25 September

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New Video “LIFE” B Roll Interview

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New UK Guardian interview with Albert Woodfox two months after his release

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New Rob Interview in F Magazine Scans Translation

Translation

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New Rob Interview with Berliner Morgenpost Scans Translation

BERLINER MORGENPOST: Are you afraid of photographers, Mr. Pattinson?

A young man that seems a bit disheartened, that is the first impression one gets during this interview with Robert Pattinson. There is no reason for the 29 year old to feel like that though, because after the massive success of the Twilight series he managed to establish himself as a serious actor. In Life he is seen as the photographer who shot the legendary pictures of James Dean.

Are you a good photographer?
Halfway decent, although I just had started it during this movie. I got the same camera that Dennis Stock had. The quality of my pictures does depend on the place and light. When I was shooting Queen of the Desert with Werner Herzog in Morocco, I got great pictures very easily, but when I returned to London my pictures came out very dark.

Usually you are the one that is photographed all the time. How well do you deal with that?
I’m struggling with it at the moment. When the first Twilight movie came out, I dealt with it very offensively-minded. That means I was out to present myself in a certain way and as long as you can control that it is good. But it became too much and it slipped out of my control. I had the feeling something was taken from me with the constant photo graphs and I got scared and closed myself off. At the moment I’m in the ‘please don’t take pictures’ phase.

What do you do when you go out and photographers are waiting for you?
I get scared.

Seriously?
No. I understand that I couldn’t let it make me go crazy. I’m tired of putting on a disguise or wear a hat.

Did you ever have a close relationship to a photographer like James Dean did?
Not with a photographer, but when the first Twilight movie came out there were some journalists I got along great with and also hung out with. There was one writer for EW who wrote a pretty cool story about me because we got along great. We went to a bar and got drunk.

Should we do that now?
No, I won’t ever do that again, because now people kind of know me through the many interviews I did and some journalists –no offense to you- try to get me to the point where I say something really awful.

Are you able to just go into a bar now?
It’s slowly getting to the point where I can. It depends on how the audience reacts. With a movie like Twilight , there was a lot of pressure and nobody cared for any individual nuances. There were some crazy reactions to certain things I said and everybody would get angry about trivialities, especially when the first movie came out. So many people were crazy, I thought I would get killed.

Don’t exaggerate now.
It’s true. When the first trailer was shown, I had an experience like the scene in Jurassic Park where the protagonists are hunted by the raptors. After a showing in Mexico we all got into a car, but the locks weren’t working and people were pushing to get into the car. My manager had to push them out and then we were followed by 400 people. The driver took a wrong turn and we ended up in a car park with people still behind us. We arrived at the exit, but we had to pay the fee and none of us had enough money and the security guy didn’t want to let us go. We all put together and paid the fee.

Your life not only resembles Jurassic Park, but a soap opera as well, especially your former relationship with your co-star Kristen Stewart. How did you experience that?
It was pretty strange. I always tried not to talk about personal things, but it didn’t make any difference, because people would just make stuff up. I became a part of a story that other people wrote and I could do nothing about it. There was a time when I didn’t do official photos, because I thought no new pictures, no new stories. I was so wrong, people just take old pictures.

Even if the fan hysteria has died down a bit, can you relate to them?
There was a time I was obsessed with Van Morrison, but not that intensely. My situation is special, because everything happened accidentally. I just fell into it. I never had a problem with my fans and I always see them as individuals and they don’t scream as individuals. It’s the mass mentality that I find bizarre. Actually the media and the photographers were the problem, because they are waiting for the moment I will make a mistake or have a bad experience. The fans want me to win and I have no problem with that.

Do you like claqueurs around you?
Absolutely not. Sometimes people around me wouldn’t tell me the truth, just because they thought I would get angry. I was treated like a little baby bird that needed to be protected around the clock. I don’t like ass kissers around me, that is annoying. I have people around me now that contradict me and even my management tells me sometimes ‘Shut up, you are a fool.’

How can you find yourself in this crazy world?
I have my ways. The people around me help me with that. My friends and my family are my solid base and apart from that I’ve also been surfing for a couple of years. I never imagined that that was something that would interest me, but the sea has a positive effect on me, which I love. When I’m far out, I can breathe.

The photographer Dennis Stock subordinates his family to his career. Can you understand this attitude?
To be honest I don’t think that attitude is very nice. His son is a burden to him. When I heard about the project, I wasn’t interested in his relationship with James Dean at first. I found it interesting that he was a person that just didn’t like his son. He is an example for someone that didn’t find happiness with this attitude. He was a tragic figure. From all his interviews it becomes clear that he didn’t learn a thing. Even at age 80 he still complained about just being famous for his James Dean pictures.

And what about you? What if you will only be famous for playing Edward the vampire?
So what? As long as I have the chance to do this for a living I’m happy. Being famous only stifles your growth. You talk to people about the same things all the time and it’s difficult to meet people outside of this bubble. As I said before I consciously searched for people who have a different perspective from mine and openly talk about it –not just trivial bullshit. Ever since Twilight I only did movies that interest me and I play roles I haven’t played before and I always got the roles I wanted. I only hope this streak will continue.

Available link for download

New Old Interview of Rob with WAZ Online Germany

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New Rob Dane and Anton Corbijn Interview with Pearl Dean

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New Rob Interview with The Scotsman

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New Old Rob Interview with Mornings Australia LIFE Berlinale Press Junket

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New Rob Interview With Seven Days Magazine

Scan | Thanks JDLife for the heads up

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New Old Rob Interview with Kinowetter for LIFE Promo from Berlinale

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Never Silenced Herman Wallaces Spirit is Smiling An interview with filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla

Never Silenced, Herman Wallaces Spirit is Smiling  
--An interview with filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla

By Angola 3 News

Canadian filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla has never shied away from examining politically controversial topics. Nor does he play down his own artistic goal of using media to foster political change. Bhallas first independent work, entitled U.A.I.L. Go Back amplified the voices of Indian villagers resisting an alumina project backed by the Canadian company Alcan. The film became an important organizing tool used to pressure Alcan into ending its involvement in the project.

Bhalla has since co-founded Time of Day Media.and while working as a community organizer for immigrant rights, he produced videos for the Service Employees International Union, Working America, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups. His award-winning short on the lives of Indian street artists, Writings on the Wall, was broadcast on Canada’s Bravo! and Al Jazeera English.

Bhallas debut feature documentary was the 2012 film Herman’s House, about Herman Wallace of the Angola 3 and the collaborative project Wallace worked on with artist Jackie Sumell, entitled The House That Herman Built. The film screened at more than 40 festivals, was distributed theatrically in the US and Canada, and won an Emmy Award for its 2013 POV broadcast on PBS.

The newly released, interactive website-based documentary film made by Bhalla, entitled The Deeper They Bury Me: A Call from Herman Wallace, builds upon Hermans House by further examining Herman Wallaces life, following Wallaces death from liver cancer on October 4, 2013, just three days after being released from prison. This latest film has already been well received. Along with a recent screening at the 28th annual International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, The Deeper They Bury Me has also been selected by Favourite Website Awards as the "Site of the Day" for December 14, where it is being displayed on the websites front page for the full day.

In this interview, filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla discusses his latest film, The Deeper They Bury Me, while also reflecting upon his 2012 film Hermans House, his personal relationship with Wallace and more. Bhalla concludes the interview with a focus on the call by Amnesty International and the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 for the immediate release of Albert Woodfox, who is the last of the Angola 3 behind bars. Despite three overturned convictions, Woodfox remains in prison and in solitary confinement, where he was first placed over 43 years ago.


(VIDEO: Coverage of the panel discussion following a recent screening of The Deeper They Bury Me at the 53rd New York Film Festival. Photos from this event by Lindsey Seide/NFB are featured below alongside still images taken from the film itself.)

Angola 3 News:  Can you please tell us how you first heard of Herman Wallace and the Angola 3?

Angad Singh Bhalla:  I first heard about Herman Wallace and the Angola 3 in 2002, shortly after Robert King’s release from prison. Artist Jackie Sumell organized a lecture for King at Stanford University, where I co-hosted a political talk show on the campus radio station at the time. Robert King remains one of the most memorable discussions we ever had on that show.

(PHOTO: Filmmaker Angad Singh Bhalla at NY Film Festival)

A3N:  Your bio states that you use your films “to call attention to voices we rarely hear” and “as a means of fostering political change.” Your 2012 film Herman’s House certainly helped to amplify Herman’s voice and it created more public attention to Herman and the Angola 3. 

Looking beyond the immediate campaign for Herman’s release from prison and solitary confinement, as well as the continuing call today for Albert Woodfox’s release from prison and solitary, what do you feel were the central messages that you sought to focus on with Herman’s House?

ASB:  With the documentary Herman’s House, the real central message was that Herman Wallace, like all the other people we incarcerate, is a human being. As simple as that sounds, I think the prison industrial complex’s most devastating impact has been to dehumanize the people it incarcerates. We did not show any images of prisons in the documentary because I believe even the very sight of a prison can contribute to this dehumanization process.

With the film I hoped to transform Herman and indirectly everyone else we incarcerate from a convict or felon into a brother, a mentor, a friend and like all of us a dreamer. In that sense, unlike other profiles, I was not as focused on Herman’s innocence. While Herman was wrongfully convicted, I wanted to focus on the nature of his incarceration which ties him to the 2.3 million other Americans we put in prison.


 

A3N:  Now with the release of The Deeper They Bury Me a few years after Herman’s House, do the fundamental themes and issues addressed in this film differ at all? Otherwise, how do you think The Deeper They Bury Me complements Herman’s House?

ASB:  Similar to Herman’s House, I think the theme of humanizing Herman and focusing on the conditions of his incarceration remain in The Deeper They Bury Me. But at the same time I think The Deeper They Bury allowed me to bring more attention to the specific circumstances around Herman’s story.

In that sense I tried to highlight Herman’s past growing up in a segregated New Orleans to highlight how America’s racist history relates directly to America’s racist present. This experience of it being more a telling of Herman’s story by Herman, allowed me to explore his political convictions and work with the Black Panther Party more than I could in the film. I tried to highlight Herman’s position as a political prisoner in The Deeper They Bury Me.

Overall I think the interactive aspect compliments the film by providing much more of the historical and political conditions of Herman’s incarceration. While Herman’s situation may have been unique, those conditions are not. I hope that through this interactive telling of  Herman’s experience viewers begin to understand that history is present.

There is a reason that in the United States, people of color account for nearly 60% of the imprisoned while making up only 30% of the population. There is a reason that the United States, black Americans are six times more likely to be imprisoned than white Americans.

These reasons are not simple and go back to the founding myths of this country, which is why there are more black men under some form correctional supervision (imprisoned, on parole, or probation) than were enslaved in 1850.

A3N:  The interactive format of The Deeper They Bury Me is very cutting edge. Can you tell us more about the various interactive features that our readers will find when they go to watch the film? What do you feel that this interactive format adds? How does it change or enrich the viewing experience?

ASB:  Well, the entire experience is set up to determine what aspects of Hermans life the user wants to hear him talk about. In many ways the prison industrial complex relies on framing spaces as tools of punishment and coercion. This interactive format allows people to actually explore 3D replicas of Hermans cell, his dream bedroom, and prison dorm. Interacting with these spaces in relation to one another, I think, allows users to really question our notions of freedom and confinement.

While not all the environments are available at the same time, the user gets to decide which spaces she wants to linger in and which elements of Herman’s story she wants hear more about. Not being constrained by a linear narrative structure and the idea of always moving an audience forward, the interactive format provides audiences the opportunity to go deeper into what would be considered Herman’s back-story in a traditional documentary.

While of course the linear documentary is my point of reference in many ways, The Deeper They Bury Me is an entirely different kind of storytelling. It will never replace the linear form, but at the same time, it allows the user to get to enter Herman’s world from the point that is most relevant to them. Further, as a tool, being able to access each of the 25 one-minute videos independently allows activists to craft a narrative that best suits their campaign work. Hermans story is so relevant for todays young activists that I wanted to try to tell it in a form that is more relevant to young people who communicate so much now online.



(PHOTO: Harry Belafonte at NY Film Festival screening)

A3N:  Along with your two films about Herman, in 2014 another Angola 3-related film was made in Canada, entitled Hard Time, by Ron Harpelle, which focused on Robert H King. Seen in the context of these three films, how do you think Canadian audiences have responded to the story of the Angola 3?

ASB:  I think like most audiences, Canadian audiences are shocked when they first hear the story of the Angola 3. I think the Angola 3 story may find more receptive outlets in Canada and other countries outside the US simply because people feel good pointing out injustices happening in other countries.

In the ‘learn more’ section of site we included the fact that Aboriginal Canadians are ten times more likely to be incarcerated that other Canadians. As much as we Canadians might like to deny it, our criminal justice system extends from a sordid history of oppression and remains a racist tool of social control.



(PHOTO: NY Film Festival speaker panel)

A3N:  What is the significance of the National Film Board of Canada’s (NFB) involvement with The Deeper They Bury Me, both producing it and hosting the film on their website? How did the NFB become involved with the film?

ASB:  In 2010, I approached the NFB looking for their support to help produce Herman’s House, the linear film. It was producer Anita Lee at the NFB, who proposed the idea of creating an independent interactive piece that became The Deeper They Bury Me.

The NFB has been leading the development of interactive online storytelling since the field first emerged, so I was extremely excited that they saw interactive potential in Herman’s story. The NFB is not only a Canadian institution but it has a global legacy of producing critical independent documentary films, including films that inspired me to get into the field, like Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and The Media. As an NFB production, The Deeper They Bury Me becomes a part of an essential collection and will most importantly introduce Herman’s Story to an even broader audience.

A3N:  In October, 2013 after battling liver cancer for several months, Herman Wallace was released from prison. Just a few days later, he passed away in the company of family and friends. In the days following, tributes to Herman ranged from US Congressmen to the Washington Post and New York Times. As someone who has studied Herman’s life so closely, can you please reflect on his life and share with us what you think his legacy is today?

ASB:  It’s would be hard to overstate the impact Herman has had on my life. More than merely the subject of my past two documentary projects, over the 6 years that we conversed by phone he became both a friend and teacher in so many ways.

To be exonerated and released three days before passing away was undoubtedly tragic, but in so many ways Herman’s story is one of victory. His legacy will forever be that of someone who stood up to injustice and won. Not in the Hollywood way of winning where everything turns out okay in the end but in the messy way people who have struggled for justice get to win.

For four decades the system tried to silence Herman for his resistance. But like Herman’s poem from which this piece is titled, the deeper they tried to bury Herman the louder his voice became. The system had planned for Herman to die in prison, and even through he enjoyed only three days of freedom, he defied that system and that defiance made headlines around the world.

Herman decided long ago that he was willing to sacrifice his life to serve as symbol for so much of what is wrong with America’s prison industrial complex. As sad as I am that I lost a friend, I can feel his spirit smiling with the knowledge that his struggle and eventual victory is still inspiring a new generation of activists.

A3N:  We in the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 have sought to honor Herman’s legacy by “turning grief into strength,” and working for the immediate release of Albert Woodfox from both prison and solitary confinement, so that he will be able spend more time outside prison walls than Herman was able to.  In February 2013, several months before Herman’s cancer diagnosis, Albert’s conviction was overturned for a third time. Subsequently, in November 2014, this third overturned conviction was upheld by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and then in June 2015, US District Court Judge James Brady ruled for Albert’s immediate and unconditional release, as well as banning a retrial. Yet, to this day Albert remains in solitary confinement. 

What do you think about Albert’s treatment in recent years, especially following Hermans death? How about this US “criminal justice” system where an elder prisoner’s conviction can be overturned for a third time, but still be held captive and in solitary confinement?

ASB:  Sadly nothing about Albert’s treatment both prior to and following Herman’s death surprises me.

Like Herman, Albert has always been used by the state as an example to others who might fight back against state oppression. There is not a criminal justice system in America, there is a system of social control that relies on incarceration and violence. The state must put all the resources it has at its disposal to keep torturing people like Albert to make sure other people who even consider exposing the system’s contradictions think twice.

Look at how the NYPD have been continuing to harass and abuse Ramsay Orta, the man who recorded the NYPD murder of Eric Garner and his family. Albert’s case has never been about the evidence that had him convicted of Brent Miller’s murder, because there isn’t any.  It has always been about the state displaying its ruthless power.

Unfortunately for the state, the truth is the truth and the more the state tries to display power the more desperate and pathetic it looks.

(PHOTO: Herman Wallace, left, with Albert Woodfox, right)

--Angola 3 News is a project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com, where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. Additionally we are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more. Our articles and videos have been published by Alternet, Truthout, Counterpunch, Monthly Review, Z Magazine, Indymedia, and many others.

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New Rob and Dane DeHaan Interview with Associated Press

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New Rob Interview With Unicum Germany

Translation via Inthejungle83

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New Rob Interview with The Times UK

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New Picture and Interview of Rob in Cosmopolitan Germany

Honestly Robert Pattinson, do fame and success drive you crazy sometimes?

Robert Pattinson ate a ‘curry wurst’ for lunch. That is the first thing he tells me after our ‘hello’ during our interview in Berlin. He pronounces it adorably ‘Denglish Corrywuscht’. “I had French fries with it, but only five”, he tells me grinning. “I’m trying to eat more healthy.” He doesn’t need it though: slightly tanned, the biggest thing about him is his beard, which, like his messy gelled hair, is very groomed. Ever since he played vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight Saga, he is the most sought after blood sucker in the world. The tabloids like to describe him as shy, but here he is smiling non stop, like a rascal planning his next prank. Maybe he is happy that the ‘blockbuster’ times are over. Ever since the fifth and last Twilight movie came out three years ago he wasn’t part of huge commercial Hollywood productions. Independent movies are now his thing. Like the ingenious biopic Life in which he plays the photographer Dennis Stock. He took pictures of James Dean for the US magazine Life in 1955, shortly before Dean died and made him immortal with his pictures. Fame and immortality are not strange concepts for Robert Pattinson, right?

Mr. Pattinson when was the first time you felt you were famous?
That was six months before the second Twilight movie came out. A PR guy invites me to a hip party in a club in LA. I forgot the name of the guy standing at the door waiting to be let in. The doorman just looked at me and said: “It’s okay, you can go in.” I was like “what?” Until then I never got into the clubs that easily. Shortly after that came the hot dog incident.

Tell me about that.
Well, I was eating a hot dog and dropped mustard on my shirt. Usually that would have made me uncomfortable, but everyone around me said “hey, that’s totally okay”, it was like I did something amazing . That’s when I knew: I can do whatever I want.

Being famous can be confusing then?
Yes, but only in one aspect: I don’t like to draw attention to myself, but I can’t walk around without being recognized. If people would say a quick “hello”, it would be fine, but every second person wants to do a selfie. That means I always have to be in a good mood.

Is there a question apart from the picture question, you can’t hear anymore?
“I know you will hate it, but………. “

Who says something like that?
Everyone. Especially back then. During Twilight a lot of people were pulling me about and telling me who I am. I didn’t know who I was myself and honestly I still don’t know who I am. But I wanted to have the chance to find that out by myself.

How did you not go crazy with the huge hysteria that came with Twilight?
Maybe becauseI never wanted to become famous. I’m satisfied with small things. The more famous I got, the more I wanted to hide. I was irritated by the hype. The climax of that was in the Munich OlympiaHalle: 3000 fans were cheering when I was answering a question. It’s much better now. The Twilight fans got older and it’s a lot more relaxed now.

Does an ex vampire go into the sun?
Yes. But I’m one of those idiots that puts on sunscreen with SPF factor 50 on the first day and then on the second day wonders “hey, I didn’t get a tan. Let’s take SPF 5.” That means on every single holiday I get sunburn. It’s good that I stayed in London for a while. It can’t happen here.

Is London a save haven for you like Marion, Indiana was for James Dean?
London is home for me. I have been living in LA for six years and didn’t go to Great Britain for some time. During my last stay in London I realized how much I missed it. But it’s more the people that give me the feeling of home and not really the places.

In Life you play the photographer that made James Dean a legend. James Dean died when he was 24 years old so you survived him by five years….
You won’t believe how many of my friends wrote this message to me on my 28th birthday “happy birthday. You are still alive.” Me: “Did you think I would be dead by now?” Them: “Yes.” Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix and Amy Winehouse, they all died when they were 27.

Do you go to celebrity doctors for your check ups?
No. I went to a dentist in LA who was well know in celebrity circles. There was a techno music playing in the practice. He was telling me about all the people that come to him. The weirdest thing was: he wasn’t wearing gloves for the treatment. I was laying there shocked thinking “do you think you are so cool that you don’t need gloves?” Nasty, I didn’t go there again.

Did you become weird?
I always have been weird. As soon as I have to talk to more than one person, it gets difficult. Having to do small talk at an event is hell for me. The crazy thing is that most people think that the more famous you get the more confident you are. I learned something about that playing a photographer: a camera around your neck will give you security. With it you get a reason to go to certain places or talk to people. I think I will carry a camera around with me from now on.

This is a reader’s question: What is the best part about being a celebrity?
That I can choose my roles and that I can go around the queue at the airport. That is the best by far and I don’t want to miss it.

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New Rob Interview with The Talks

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ROBERT PATTINSON: “EVERYONE WANTS YOU TO BE SO VANILLA”Mr. Pattinson, are you disillusioned with your career?
I think a lot of actors get disillusioned and say, “Oh, I thought it was going to be one way, and it’s something else.” I never thought anything was going to be any particular way at all! You know, in the good times and the bad times, they’re all just new experiences. So I can’t really be disillusioned with anything because I didn’t have any expectations at all.

What about people’s expectations of you?
I’ve never really acknowledged people’s expectations of me. A lot of actors sort of fall into the job and feel like they’re going to get “found out,” like, found out that they’re a fraud or something like that. I think loads of people feel like that. I did a film with Anton Corbijn called LIFE where I played the photographer who shot those famous photos of James Dean and there are a lot of parallels between an acting career and a photography career.

Like what?
Both of them are almost entirely dependent on the material, especially if you’re doing stuff like taking photos of famous people and really talented people who are incredibly interesting and charismatic. As an actor, you want to be an artist, but you’re so dependent on everybody else! And even if you’re great in something, there’s only a few actors who the audience acknowledges that they were the reason something’s good. With a photographer, it’s very difficult to claim stuff, too.

As someone who has been hounded by the paparazzi more than most, was it cathartic to switch roles and play the photographer for once?
It was quite strange walking up to the Chateau Marmont as a paparazzi. It was very weird at the actual place. I don’t know if it was cathartic. Maybe it would have been if, because of him being paparazzi, he ends up getting beaten to death…

They’re just people, too.
Well… In fact, not at all. That’s probably why my character was so filled with self-loathing, because he’s a paparazzi. (Laughs)

When your career started off you had some trouble with photographers yourself.
When Twilight first happened, a lot of the franchise people at the time were under strict control by the studios and stuff, so they did it quite “kid-friendly.” And I think for the first few months I kept getting photographed, like, being drunk and smoking cigarettes and things. So I think that’s kind of why people said it was a bit different. But I think the landscape has changed so much. I remember even people like Colin Farrell and stuff. I guess when he was super wild, that was only seven years ago, eight years ago, but I don’t even think you’re allowed to be like that anymore.

Why not, what would happen?
If you do that now, you just don’t get employed. At all. Everyone wants you to be so vanilla! It’s so lame! So, everyone’s just like secret drug addicts instead. (Laughs)

Did you have interview training once you signed on to do Twilight to keep all of your comments vanilla?
Yeah, Summit put me in media training because I was doing too many stupid interviews. I just wanted to tell jokes and stuff and then they sent an email afterwards saying that I refused to cooperate with the media training! It’s my agent’s favorite email she got because she thought it was so hilarious that I refused to relent to the media training.

Would it be possible for you to still be friends with a journalist?
I think it works until you get to a certain level of fame. Before the first Twilight came out there were a couple of journalists who I got on with. They did good profiles on you and stuff and they’d kind of champion you for a bit. But I think if you do too many interviews, people aren’t interested in the nuances of what you’re saying. You’ve just said too much and you end up repeating yourself. The editors are like, “Get him to say something that makes him sound like an idiot or get him to say something controversial.”

That’s pretty much exactly how it goes for many publications, sadly.
Yeah and I think you can’t really be that close with a journalist when you can see them, like, needing you to say something bad for their own jobs. I know actors who have made deals with paparazzi and stuff – it always backfires. Always. Because, like, you just shouldn’t. As soon as you start throwing shit around, you’re going to get covered in shit.

Well, after Twilight ended you’ve been choosing to work with auteurs like Herzog, Cronenberg, Anton Corbijn, and James Gray on smaller projects where your exposure is a lot different.
The last few years I’ve basically done stuff just for the director. After working with Cronenberg on Cosmopolis it just opened stuff up. People approach you in a different way. And now I’ve done a few other things and it kind of just works on a roll, being able to work with these auteur-y kind of guys. It’s quite nice to do smaller parts, so the film doesn’t totally rely on what I do in it. I get to work with who I want to work with and it’s not my fault if it doesn’t make any money!

After working with a few of those directors, has there been a moment where you noticed the difference in how they work?
There was a moment at the end of The Rover. We had just wrapped and David Michôd was standing in the middle of the parking lot we were just shooting in. He looked sort of weird and was watching people packing stuff up. And I was like, “You all right?” And he said, “Yeah, I just think I’m only going to have like six more of these days in my life, so I just want to feel it for a second.” It’s so funny the difference between someone who is doing a job essentially for their next job, or somebody who has written it, produced it.

Someone who is going to devote several years of their life to it when it’s all said and done.
Yeah, you can feel it. It’s much more exhilarating and fun to try to fulfill someone’s dream. A lot of the time you’re working with someone and they don’t really know what they want and they don’t even necessarily want to do the job they’re doing. So you’re just trying to not drown and they’re panicking the whole time. It’s horrible. But with people who are confident and believe in their projects, it’s a completely different experience.

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New Rob Interview With The Irish Times

Once best known as the undead teen Edward in the Twilight series, Robert Pattinson is slowly but surely reinventing himself – from broody cutie-pie to go-to leading man.

Stormont may be in crisis and regional unemployment rates do not make for happy reading, but at least Northern Ireland can boast – albeit temporarily – one Robert Pattinson.

Last month, the former Twilight and Harry Potter star delighted two Co Down newlyweds when he agreed to join their wedding hooley. He also hit Cypress Avenue to mark Van Morrison’s 70th birthday, and has been deemed a most excellent sport when it comes to Belfast-based autograph and selfie hunters.

Even by Pattinson’s own account, the sun shines just a little more intently when he graces the northeast: “It’s been sunny every time I’ve been here,” marvels the heavily bearded young actor. “They tell me it rains. But I haven’t seen it.”

Pattinson has decamped to Ulster with a purpose. Following in the footsteps of Game of Thrones and the incoming Dad’s Army reboot, James Gray’s The Lost City of Z is the latest major production to shoot across various Northern Irish locations, including Methodist College, Strangford Lough and Craigavon House. Not that Pattinson has spent too much time in these stately locations. “I have mainly been on the boat that’s falling apart,” he laughs.

The Lost City of Z charts the exploits of the British explorer Percy Fawcett who, in 1925, disappeared in the Amazon while looking for an ancient lost city. In the subsequent years, as many as 100 explorers and scientists have gone missing while attempting to find evidence of Fawcett’s party.

Pattinson of Arabia

Bizarrely, the film is the second Pattinson vehicle this year to feature a 1920s British explorer: he recently played Thomas Lawrence (yep, Lawrence of Arabia) alongside Nicole Kidman in Werner Herzog’s Gertrude Bell biopic, Queen of the Desert.

Is he single-handedly attempting to revive a sub-genre?
“Do you know that I didn’t even think about that until yesterday,” says Pattinson. “I have no idea how it happened. Admittedly, one is in the desert and with Z we’re heading out to the jungle. But they are similar things. I signed on for both movies years ago, and it is weird that they came together at the same time.”

Both Pattinson and principle photography will soon depart for Columbia. I hope he’s had all the relevant shots?
“Ha. Are you reading my emails? I was talking to another actor yesterday and he was telling me about all these different shots. I don’t have anything yet. Should I be worried about this stuff? Because I had been thinking that maybe I should just butch it out.”

Is he, fresh from the Werner Herzog shoot, planning to go full Klaus Kinski in the jungle?
“They did have all these crazy ideas involving smaller crocodiles in the river. But I think my character is going to be a pussy. I’m a little worried about the monkeys. There are hundreds of thousands of monkeys everywhere in Columbia. There are more of them than birds. Have you seen the video of the monkey saving the other monkey’s life? They may take over.”

We’re not too surprised that Pattinson’s career has brought him to far-flung, monkey-infested, mythological spots. Having started big – as in Forbes’ Celebrity 100 big – as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Edward Cullen in the Twilight sequence, Pattinson (29) has moved stealthily into auteur circles. As well as Herzog, he has worked with David Michôd (The Rover) and twice with David Cronenberg (Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars).
Is the actor who was listed among Peoplemagazine’s 100 most influential people in the world at the age of 24 purposely avoiding mainstream projects?

Homogenised roles

“Only in the sense that with all the massive mainstream things I come across, the characters all become a little homogenised,” says Pattinson, who jokingly – but not really – describes himself as an “oddball”. “And so it is kind of like you either play a cliche or do an impersonation of another actor. If a big movie came along that [has] a weirdo character, then I wouldn’t be scared off.”
Is he staking arthouse luminaries, or are they the ones banging on his door?

“A bit of both. James Gray has been one of my favourite directors for ever and ever. When I saw Two Lovers, I thought it was one of the best films I’d ever seen. On a really profound level. I tried to do three projects with him. None of which happened. So Z is a dream come true. Herzog was more random. But if you get the opportunity you are going to work with him.

“I have been trying to work with Claire Denis for a while and that’s supposed to be happening, which is insane. Then there’s the Safdie brothers. They’re the future of cinema, I think.”
Spoken like a proper buff.

“Hmm. When I was younger, I was a real film buff. When I lived in London, I would watch an enormous amount of films. I seemed to have more patience with German New Wave films and so on. Now I don’t know what’s happened. I feel I have had a minor stroke and all I can watch is reality TV. I am grabbing on to the few remaining brain cells.”

Adding to Pattinson’s already impressive auteur tally, director Anton Corbjin’s Lifecasts the actor as photographer Dennis Stock, who snapped the iconic “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” shot of James Dean in 1955.
The film chronicles the brief friendship between Dean (Dane DeHaan) and the Life magazine photographer. Stock, despite being essayed by the awfully personable Pattinson, is far from an easy sell as a hero. A failing father and artist, he never appears to be comfortable in his own skin. The London-born star has seldom looked, well, greasier.

“He has that thing,” nods Pattinson. “I don’t know if it’s a typical thing for actors. Maybe other actors push it away. But it’s always at the forefront of my mind: thinking you are a fake and trying to get back that confidence to start performing.

“There are parallels between myself as an actor and him as a photographer. Something within you is telling you to do it when every other aspect of your mind is saying ‘you’re a fake, you’re a fraud’.
“Dennis Stock has a sort of desperate self-loathing. He is one of those people who is so incapable of loving himself that he can’t love anybody else.”

The RPatz tag

Charming and ever so self-deprecating, it’s hard to reconcile Robert Pattinson with the super-global-megastar known about red-topped newspapers as RPatz. I tell him that the first time I happened upon that particular abbreviation, I snorted and thought: it’ll never catch on.

“They call everybody something, I suppose,” he says, cheerfully. “I would love to know what the reason was for that. I always like to think its contempt masquerading as admiration.”

Thus, RPatz is an Orwellian creation who is engaged to musician FKA Twigs and who may or may not be planning to have a pub wedding with crisps, a shotgun Vegas affair or a grand castle blow out. His mother Clare may or may not approve. And so on.

“My mother has Google Alerts,” he says. “It’s the most abominable compulsion. The most embarrassing thing is looking yourself up. Nothing can affect you at all if you don’t look it up. People who do pay attention to that stuff think they are trying to connect with the real world. But comments on the internet are not the real world. Thankfully.”

Far away from the madness of being RPatz, Robert Pattinson can’t bear to watch himself onscreen.

“I don’t really like watching the film when it’s done. Sometimes I like watching it with an audience. But if you don’t like it, it is a really shitty feeling. I like watching playback on some movies. Because you might still be able to fix something. But it’s tricky. Because it’s not your call.”

Does he otherwise enjoy the process?

“Well, it’s weird. Because I didn’t really set out to be an actor. At school my drama teacher told me, whatever else I did, to not act. So when I started acting I always felt like the underdog. I felt I have to prove something. Fifteen years later I still have that deep- seated memory. I will probably always have it.”

He laughs again: “Oh, well. What am I saying? I think that brain damage is kicking in again.”

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New Rob Interview With Associated Press

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