Robert Pattinson has said Primetime is “not an indictment” of TV show host Chris Hansen.
The British actor, 40, stars in the psychological thriller directed by Lance Oppenheim from a screenplay by Ajon Singh.
The film dramatises the production of the American reality television series To Catch A Predator, which aired between 2004 and 2007.
Pattinson stars as its host Hansen, an NBC journalist who worked with a vigilante group to expose child predators in sting operations.
The show was officially cancelled in 2008 following a sting operation two years earlier on Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt, who shot himself after officers and film crew reportedly entered his home. The episode did not air.
Speaking to the Press Association at the screening of the film at the BFI’s London Film Festival, Pattinson shared how he wanted to approach playing the real-life figure.
“It’s a portrait, and it’s not an indictment of Chris as a person at all and was never supposed to be like ‘oh this is who he is’,” he said.
“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.”
Director Lance Oppenheim, Robert Pattinson and Merritt Wever attend the premiere of Primetime (Ian West/PA)
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Although Pattinson was initially planning on just producing the film, he explained why he eventually jumped at the chance to play Hansen.“I mean, it’s the script first of all. I was familiar with him, and I liked the show. I thought it was really interesting when I was younger,” he said.
“But it’s just always an interesting thing where you have someone who feels like a very kind of familiar puppet figure, and you find someone who’s looking at him from a really unusual angle that’s just very surprising to you, and it’s familiar enough to be recognisable, but at the same time totally surprising.”
He continued: “I did an enormous amount of research into what happened with To Catch A Predator and what happened to him as a public figure is entirely unique.
“A lot of other people covered the same news stories, but no one’s had what happened to Chris happen to them.
“For such a long time, there was this like memeability about him and it doesn’t make an enormous amount of sense why that happened. It’s fascinating.”
Robert Pattinson was originally planning on producing the film before jumping at the chance to star as TV host Hansen (Ian West/PA)
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Singh’s script was adapted from a 2007 Esquire article that detailed the incident.
“We’ve taken things to the dramatic extreme, and that’s how I kind of view life itself, for better or worse,” the screenwriter said.
“I feel things extremely strongly and I tried to channel that into the script. The show itself had such a powerful effect on me because I watched it as a child, frankly, which is a strange thing to watch as a child.
“But I think I sort of channelled that energy of watching something so shocking when you’re not ready for it.”
Although the film explores how To Catch A Predator pursued vigilante justice and public shaming, Singh said he and Oppenheim “never set out to moralise on the subject”.
Director Lance Oppenheim described the film as taking Hollywood drama and turning it into a human drama (Ian West/PA)
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“We kind of just want to ask a question because, frankly, I don’t even know what my opinion is on it,” he said.
“Putting online predators away is good. But what does it reveal about society and humanity that we like watching these things?
“Just a few days ago, we saw that the US might broadcast an execution. How strange to me. But at the end of the day, everyone was watching To Catch A Predator and it was one of the highest-rated shows on television.
“I was watching it. So, it’s sort of hypocritical for me to go out and say people shouldn’t be watching.”
He added: “Part of the thesis of the film is this ancient practice – you had the public square, you had the pillories, you had an executioner. It reveals something about humanity. I think more than anything else.”
Although Hansen has publicly decried the film, claiming it sets out to “demonise” him, Singh said he appreciated how the host had been telling people to still go see it.
Robert Pattinson will play TV host Chris Hansen in the film (Ian West/PA)
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“I can’t control how he feels but I’ve been surprised that he keeps telling people to go watch it and make up their own minds, which I’ve been delighted by as I think that’s the right approach,” he said.
Oppenheim – best known for making documentaries – explained why this story convinced him to make his first ever feature film.
“I feel like most of the documentaries I made up to this point, I was kind of turning human drama into a Hollywood drama. That’s always the way I’m interested in the kind of inhabiting a subjectivity or expressing the stories of real people in that specific sort of way, but with this film I wanted to do the opposite,” he said.
“I wanted to take a Hollywood drama and turn it into a fever dream. I wanted to make something that was totally unlike anything hopefully you’ve ever seen before. I wanted to riff off the feeling that you’d get when you’d watch the show, which is a very complicated, strange, confusing feeling.
“At some points, it’s completely horrifying. Then it’s completely hilarious. Then it’s horrifying again, and that makes you feel like you need to take a shower after you’ve watched it.
“So, I wanted to make something that reflected on that time period, and also put you in the position of what it felt like to watch the show.”
Primetime also stars Unbelievable actress Merritt Wever, Focker-In-Law’s Skyler Gisondo and singer Phoebe Bridgers.