Robert Pattinson has responded to Chris Hansen’s criticisms of the forthcoming movie inspired by his work on To Catch a Predator.
Primetime, which is premiering at the Venice Film Festival this weekend, is a psychological thriller starring the Twilight actor as Hansen, host of the NBC Dateline hidden camera series where he would confront suspected sexual predators.
Hansen’s objections to the movie were the focus of a Saturday press conference at the festival. Pattinson said he hoped that Hansen, who has previously called the project “disingenuous” and “exploitative,” would eventually see his portrayal as a compliment.
“I mean, obviously I hope he likes the movie,” Pattinson said, according to Variety. “I never really set out to make a movie about Chris Hansen. I would hope in some ways, like, the amount of inspiration that his character has kind of given certain people who are involved in this [film] for like years now, I hope is some kind of compliment.”
open image in galleryHe continued: “I think the more you watch a show, there’s something like magnetic about his presence.”
“I watched a show when I was younger and I didn’t even think about it. I mean, when you kind of obsessively watch it, you realize there’s a strange alchemy with what’s going on with the status of the show and how it was directed and how things got together and the time period.”
“But something he’s doing is the reason why people are still talking about that show 20 years later,” Pattinson continued.
“And it’s not to do necessarily solely with subject matter. I just think there was something about the show that was very groundbreaking, kind of breaking the rules of television.”
Hansen, 66, hosted To Catch a Predator for its entire run on NBC Dateline from 2004 to 2007.
The show was famous for Hansen’s ability to lure suspected sex predators into an on-camera confrontation. It was canceled as a result of a 2006 wrongful death lawsuit after Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt died by suicide during one of Hansen’s operations.
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open image in galleryA24’s movie, out September 25, is directed by Lance Oppenheim, and also stars Unbelievable actor Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and singer Phoebe Bridgers in her acting debut.
Hansen was not involved in the making of the movie and has repeatedly spoken out against it.
During an appearance on Dan Abrams’ SiriusXM podcast on August 26, Hansen suggested that he was considering his legal options concerning Primetime.
“People are looking at it, Dan,” Hansen said. “I don’t know. One guy told me, somebody who’s very, very good at all this and very entrenched in entertainment law, he said, ‘You know, you can do that, and you probably have a decent case. How much time do you want to spend doing it?’ ”
“It’s overly dramatic,” he said about the movie trailer. “How could they tell the story without having talked to anybody who was directly involved?
He added that the dialogue included in the trailer “never took place in real life,” saying: “It’s way out there and not reflective of reality.”
He added: “It feels very exploitative to me. It feels sneaky and disingenuous to me.”
Hansen claimed in another interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters that he was turned away from an early screening of the movie after he refused to “sign away my rights to my name, image and brand.”
The Independent has contacted A24 for comment.