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"Robert Pattinson and David Cronenberg&amp;#039;s Cosmopolis arrived at the Cannes Film Festival today (May 25) with anticipation high thanks to a scintillating teaser trailer. Early critical reaction has been mixed so far, but the cast and crew were on fine form for this morning&amp;#039;s press conference. Digital Spy picks out the best bits from Pattinson and Cronenberg below... David Cronenberg on why he wanted to turn Don DeLillo&amp;#039;s novel into a film... &amp;quot;I read it and two days later I said, &amp;#039;Yes, I would love to do this&amp;#039;. It took me only six days to write the script, and that&amp;#039;s because the book was fantastic. The dialogue was just beautiful and perfect and what you see in the movie is almost word-for-word what&amp;#039;s in the book.&amp;quot; Robert Pattinson on Cronenberg&amp;#039;s films... &amp;quot;I really liked his stuff.&amp;quot; His director&amp;#039;s response... &amp;quot;I always had the feeling he&amp;#039;d never seen any of my movies.&amp;quot; Pattinson on preparing to play New York billionaire Eric Packer and not intellectualising acting... &amp;quot;I spent two weeks in my hotel room worrying and confusing myself. I went round to [David&amp;#039;s] house and he said, &amp;#039;It doesn&amp;#039;t really matter. Let&amp;#039;s just start, something will happen&amp;#039;. &amp;quot;What I liked about this script was its lyricism and the rhythms of it. I didn&amp;#039;t want to change a single word of the script, even the punctuation. That made it easier, it&amp;#039;s like you&amp;#039;re doing a song instead of a movie. It freed you up, if you&amp;#039;re trying to do something in a cerebral way it becomes about ego and it&amp;#039;s silly. Actors aren&amp;#039;t supposed to be intelligent!&amp;quot;  Pattinson on why Cronenberg mysteriously vanishes to his trailer... &amp;quot;David has this thing, he&amp;#039;ll go back to his trailer after he chooses a shot. Most directors will stay on the set just waiting around until the shot&amp;#039;s set up. I was always curious where you went, I had no idea where you were going to. You&amp;#039;d watch a widescreen TV in the trailer with a live feed of the shot being set up - I just thought he was sleeping or something. &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re sitting on the set a bunch of people will ask you questions all the time, a lot of directors are kind of exhausted by the time they&amp;#039;re supposed to do their job with the actors. They&amp;#039;re not really listening anymore. David is listening so intently when you&amp;#039;re doing a scene.&amp;quot; Cronenberg on the film&amp;#039;s final 22 minutes and his theory about the &amp;quot;essence of cinema&amp;quot;... &amp;quot;The last 22 minutes is Paul and Rob in one set, in a couple of rooms. I knew people would say this is very theatrical. You could do that 22 minutes as a short play with a set but it wouldn&amp;#039;t be the movie. It would not be cinema, it would be theatre. &amp;quot;The difference is the camera, what lens you&amp;#039;re using, the effect of the lens, the effect of camera movement and so on. How close you are to the actor, how far away you are with each shot. That last 22 minutes to me is essential cinema. It&amp;#039;s the essence of cinema. For me the essence of cinema is a person&amp;#039;s face, speaking. Not epic, not the Grand Canyon, but a human being speaking.&amp;quot;  Paul Giamatti on spending those special 22 on-screen minutes with a heartthrob... &amp;quot;It was just me and Rob. I got to just gaze into his eyes the whole time and be in love with him. It was great.&amp;quot; More confusion as Pattinson attempts to explain what the movie is about... &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s actually a really hopeful movie. Everyone&amp;#039;s asking what&amp;#039;s the movie about and I have no idea. Someone told me it was about the end of the world. It kind of is in a way, but the hope in it... you present a world that doesn&amp;#039;t make any sense. &amp;quot;Finance doesn&amp;#039;t make any sense to me and it seems to have absurd, disproportionate power. You say it&amp;#039;s ending the world, the world doesn&amp;#039;t end, it&amp;#039;s just a rebirth. When I look at the world, maybe I&amp;#039;m just a depressive, I think sometimes the world does need to be washed and cleansed. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s the hope of it, there&amp;#039;s a line in the book that&amp;#039;s not in the movie... I feel like I&amp;#039;m making an idiot of myself, I wasn&amp;#039;t even asked a question. It is a hopeful movie, you&amp;#039;re wrong!&amp;quot; Does Pattinson share similarities with Packer? &amp;quot;I do think people are trying to kill me all the time.&amp;quot; Photo gallery - Cannes Film Festival in pictures:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/cannes-film-festival/news/a383640/cannes-robert-pattinson-david-cronenberg-talk-cosmopolis/>