Robert Pattinson has insisted that his forthcoming film Primetime is "not an indictment" of real-life television host Chris Hansen.
The 40-year-old British actor stars in the psychological thriller, which is directed by Lance Oppenheim from a script written by Ajon Singh.
The project dramatises the behind-the-scenes creation of To Catch a Predator, the American reality series that aired between 2004 and 2007.
Pattinson plays Hansen, an NBC journalist who teamed up with a group of vigilantes to expose child predators through sting operations.
The series was taken off the air in 2008 following a sting operation involving Bill Conradt, an assistant district attorney in Texas. Conradt shot himself after police officers and a camera crew entered his home, and the resulting footage was never broadcast.
Speaking to the Press Association at the film’s screening during the BFI London Film Festival, Pattinson explained his perspective on playing the real-life presenter.
"It’s a portrait, and it’s not an indictment of Chris as a person at all and was never supposed to be like ‘oh this is who he is’," he said.
"It’s the feeling you get from watching a show in a certain period of time and trying to encompass a lot of other different things into that story."
Having initially planned to remain behind the scenes as a producer, Pattinson detailed why he decided to step into the role of Hansen.
"I mean, it’s the script first of all. I was familiar with him, and I liked the show. I thought it was really interesting when I was younger," he said.
"But it’s just always an interesting thing where you have someone who feels like a very kind of familiar puppet figure, and you find someone who’s looking at him from a really unusual angle that’s just very surprising to you, and it’s familiar enough to be recognisable, but at the same time totally surprising."
He added: "I did an enormous amount of research into what happened with To Catch A Predator and what happened to him as a public figure is entirely unique.
"A lot of other people covered the same news stories, but no one’s had what happened to Chris happen to them.
"For such a long time, there was this like memeability about him and it doesn’t make an enormous amount of sense why that happened. It’s fascinating."
Singh adapted the screenplay from a 2007 article in Esquire magazine that documented the fallout from the sting.
"We’ve taken things to the dramatic extreme, and that’s how I kind of view life itself, for better or worse," the screenwriter said.
"I feel things extremely strongly and I tried to channel that into the script. The show itself had such a powerful effect on me because I watched it as a child, frankly, which is a strange thing to watch as a child.
"But I think I sort of channelled that energy of watching something so shocking when you’re not ready for it."
Though the narrative explores the public shaming and vigilante justice driving To Catch A Predator, Singh noted that he and Oppenheim "never set out to moralise on the subject".
"We kind of just want to ask a question because, frankly, I don’t even know what my opinion is on it," he said.
"Putting online predators away is good. But what does it reveal about society and humanity that we like watching these things? Just a few days ago, we saw that the US might broadcast an execution. How strange to me. But at the end of the day, everyone was watching To Catch A Predator and it was one of the highest-rated shows on television.
"I was watching it. So, it’s sort of hypocritical for me to go out and say people shouldn’t be watching."
He continued: "Part of the thesis of the film is this ancient practice – you had the public square, you had the pillories, you had an executioner. It reveals something about humanity. I think more than anything else."
While Hansen has voiced criticism of the movie, arguing that it attempts to "demonise" him, Singh noted that he appreciated the host’s stance on viewing it.
"I can’t control how he feels but I’ve been surprised that he keeps telling people to go watch it and make up their own minds, which I’ve been delighted by as I think that’s the right approach," he said.
Oppenheim, primarily known for his documentary work, explained what drew him to direct his narrative feature debut.
"I feel like most of the documentaries I made up to this point, I was kind of turning human drama into a Hollywood drama. That’s always the way I’m interested in the kind of inhabiting a subjectivity or expressing the stories of real people in that specific sort of way, but with this film I wanted to do the opposite," he said.
"I wanted to take a Hollywood drama and turn it into a fever dream. I wanted to make something that was totally unlike anything hopefully you’ve ever seen before. I wanted to riff off the feeling that you’d get when you’d watch the show, which is a very complicated, strange, confusing feeling.
"At some points, it’s completely horrifying. Then it’s completely hilarious. Then it’s horrifying again, and that makes you feel like you need to take a shower after you’ve watched it.
"So, I wanted to make something that reflected on that time period, and also put you in the position of what it felt like to watch the show."
Primetime also stars Merritt Wever of Unbelievable, Skyler Gisondo of Focker-In-Law, and musician Phoebe Bridgers.
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