Robert Pattinson went to Venice with a movie inspired by a man who has not seen it and already has objections. At the press conference for Primetime ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Pattinson addressed Chris Hansen's public criticism of the film directly.
"I would hope in some ways, like the amount of inspiration that his character has given so many people who are involved in this film for years now, I hope it's some kind of compliment," Pattinson told the press conference, according to Deadline. He also added, simply, "Obviously, I hope he likes the movie."
Hansen, who hosted To Catch a Predator on Dateline NBC, has said he has not seen the film and has raised what he described as "ethical" issues with the use of his name and the names of his colleagues and family members in what he called a work of fiction. Based on the trailer alone, Hansen suggested Pattinson had achieved "a pretty good imitation" of him but that the performance was "overly dramatic."
Pattinson pushed back on that characterization, at least indirectly. He described watching Hansen's show repeatedly and finding something unusual in it.
"The more you watch the show, there's something magnetic about his presence… I watched the show when I was younger and I didn't even think about it and when you obsessively watch it, you realize there's a strange alchemy with what's going on, the aesthetics of the show, and how it was directed, and how things are put together, and the time period," he said at the Venice press conference.
He went further, crediting Hansen with something beyond the subject matter itself. "But something he's doing is the reason why people are still talking about that show 20 years later, and it's not to do solely with the subject matter… I just think there was something about the show that was very groundbreaking, kind of breaking the rules of television."
Director Lance Oppenheim, who made the film for A24, said his first exposure to To Catch a Predator actually came through parody. "I first discovered To Catch a Predator through parodies of it on shows like South Park," he told the press conference, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. "And when I finally saw To Catch a Predator, I was amazed. Chris Hansen was this like mythological being who had these one-liners that reminded me of Tony Montana [in Scarface]. His version of 'say hello to my little friend,' was 'have a seat right there.'"
Oppenheim described his confusion watching the show as a child. "I was always fascinated as a young child with the theatricality of the show. I was so confused by it. Was it a prank show? Was it a news show? Was it a circus with Chris Hansen as a ringleader?"
Primetime was written by first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh, loosely adapted from an Esquire article by Luke Dittrich. The film focuses on what the production describes as the darkest year in Hansen's run on To Catch a Predator. Pattinson not only stars as Hansen but boarded the project early as a producer. He said he came to the script before he thought much about Hansen himself. "I never really set out to make a movie about Chris Hansen. I never really thought about it, and then I saw [Ajon Singh's] script, and there's something electrifying about it," he said.
The cast includes Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers and Bokeem Woodbine, all of whom joined the press conference panel. The film marks Bridgers' debut feature film role. Among the topics the panel addressed were the challenging nature of the material, how the cast came together, and how film culture online has narrowed toward memes and viral clips.
Both Oppenheim and Pattinson said they are not bothered by the meme factor surrounding the film, particularly given how Hansen himself became a viral presence long before that term existed. "The idea of a man who became a myth, a person who became a persona, a person who embraced the meme of himself, and yet still continued to do work in a very, very serious and dark subject, I thought that would make for such an interesting film," Oppenheim said.
Pattinson connected it to a broader shift in how pop culture circulates. "I felt like that had been completely gone from culture for like years and years. And suddenly realized it's been replaced by memes, and I quite like that," he said.
Hansen has purchased pre-show advertising for his own streaming platform around the film's release, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He remains the center of the story even in his absence from Venice.
