It will take you a minute to recognize Robert Pattinson’s voice in the new teaser trailer for Primetime (watch below), A24’s upcoming film in which he stars as broadcast journalist Chris Hansen, the face of the former Dateline NBC series To Catch a Predator. This has become something of a signature for the guy who’s brought wild vocal flair to everything from The Devil All the Time to Mickey 17 to Good Time.
Here, the British actor appears to take on Hansen’s vocal patterns and tics with an eerie, off-kilter precision, as those familiar with the infamous true-crime host can attest. While a very small glimpse into what the characterization will look like — with an even shorter visual introduction — the trailer indicates that more chameleonic work from Pattinson is on the way.
Primetime is directed by the acclaimed documentarian Lance Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven, Ren Faire) in his narrative feature debut, and marks Pattinson’s first full feature-producing credit. It’s set in 2006, the year in which the bulk of the series’ episodes aired. (To Catch a Predator premiered in 2004.) The show, which followed Hansen and his crew working with law enforcement and hiring “decoys” to trap and arrest alleged pedophiles, emerged as a kind of queasy cultural phenomenon, drawing millions of viewers to the reliable template of Hansen catching bad guys on camera.
But 2006 was also the year when a target of To Catch a Predator named Bill Conradt shot and killed himself, right as officers and the film crew entered his home — a shocking tragedy that led to the end of the show. It’s not clear what ground Primetime will cover, but hearing Pattinson’s Hansen say with chilling conviction in the trailer, “I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC, and you’re about to be a part of television history,” indicates that this won’t be the sunniest of portraits.
This will be Pattinson’s second A24 movie of the year following The Drama, for which his anxiously humane turn earned some of the best reviews of his career. (THR’s review said, “Pattinson gives a natural, appealing performance, convincingly playing a relatively normal guy…who begins to realize that his comfortable life with his quirky dream girl is not nearly as settled, or normal, as he once thought.”) That movie, like Primetime, affirms that the Twilight alum is not playing it safe in his choices — giving big, complex performances to match provocative material from idiosyncratic filmmakers.
And still, Pattinson’s year is just getting started, continuing to mix high-end blockbuster fare with sharp-edged auteur projects. He’s got a major role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey as the arrogant Antinous, will play a new antagonist to Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreidis in Dune: Part Three, and stars opposite Denzel Washington in Netflix’s Here Comes the Flood. Oh, and he’s now jumping into filming on Matt Reeves’ sequel to The Batman, in case you were worried about him slowing down.
Primetime will be released in theaters this fall. The film co-stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers in her feature debut. You can also check out the poster below.
A24
