"I said: 'Let's not be intimidated by this, this could be quite exhilarating if we do it right.' We built a limo that comes apart like a Lego car in about 24 pieces. I don't think of it as a challenge, but as a lot of fun."
Robert Pattinson's performance as the billionaire banker has been largely well received since the film's Cannes debut."At its heart is a sensational central performance from Robert Pattinson," said The Telegraph's Robbie Collin. "Pattinson plays him like a human caldera; stony on the surface, with volcanic chambers of nervous energy and self-loathing churning deep below."
Empire's Damon Wise observed: "Lean and spiky - with his clean white shirt he resembles a groomed Sid Vicious - Pattinson nails a difficult part almost perfectly, recalling those great words of advice from West Side Story: You wanna live in this crazy world? Play it cool."
What made Cronenberg choose Pattinson as his leading man? "This character is in every scene in the movie which is quite unusual for a movie with a big star," he says.
"That means he must have charisma, and that he is constantly revealing different tones and shades - and Rob has that.
"Finally, he has to be good with dialogue because this is wall-to-wall dialogue, some of it quite technical, which can be very intimidating for an actor. Once I convinced him he was the guy, he had no problem with it."
Cronenberg is closely associated with the "body horror" genre through his 1970s and 80s films such as Rabid, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly. Cronenberg has written a screenplay for a new Fly movie, but says plans to make it appear to have been squashed. "I was interested in not doing exactly a sequel or a remake," Cronenberg explains. "It was suggested to me by the people at Fox who have the rights to the original [1950s] movie and my movie, but there was what we should call 'creative differences'. "What I was interested in doing and what they wanted were two different things, so it's no longer in my control. It's in their court to play."
Cronenberg laughs when it's pointed out that Robert Pattinson was born in 1986 - the same year that he made The Fly. "There comes a time as a director when you are no longer the youngest guy on the set - I used to be and now I'm the oldest!"
Cosmopolis opens in the UK on 15 June. via RPLife
DazedDigital: What struck you about Robert Pattinson to make you think he’d fit the part of Eric Packer?
David Cronenberg: He’s intensely charismatic and watchable and this is a role in which the lead character is in every single scene, and that’s really unusual, even for a movies with big stars. And that means you have to have somebody who people will watch and want to watch and want to listen to. I’d seen some of his movies that were not Twilight and I thought this guy’s got an interesting range and he seems to be a serious actor, he’s really interested in chances and is willing to take chances. @alexandra1116
