The Five Spot: Robert Pattinson Is The Prince Of The Chaotic Press Tour

ALSO: A champagne crisis and a beautiful moment in local news

The Five Spot is a weekly Friday roundup where I rank and riff on my five favorite things from the week. Most of the entries will be about film and TV, but there might also be ones about weird local news or sandwiches I ate or anything else, really. The opening section is free but the rest is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to read the top four entries, you can do that by upgrading…

Off we go.

FIVE: Rob is cooking

I love a good Robert Pattinson press tour because people will ask him questions and he will respond with just whatever pops into his head in the moment. It’s great. It’s kind of exactly the attitude you would hope a child star comes away with as an adult, this whole “a little jaded but in a fun way, like you realize how silly it all is in the grand scheme of the universe but also you’ve learned how to manipulate it all so you can dance between the raindrops” attitude that he has. It doesn’t always work out that way. We’ve seen child stardom go sideways as the children age into adulthood. I don’t even need to list examples. You’re thinking of some right now.

There are a few others who thread this needle, though. Daniel Radcliffe seems to be having a blast. Ryan Gosling charms and goofs his way through every press event. Pattinson’s Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart does a great job with it, too. The degree of difficulty here is high. Good for them.

Good for us, too, by the way, because Pattinson is out there right now promoting both his new fragrance partnership with Dior and his upcoming space movie Mickey 17 and he is really getting after it. Examples will help. I have examples. Like, to begin with, his interview with Elle Magazine, which you should absolutely go read in full to grasp the full context of how much fun he’s having, but I will excerpt… now.

I can weirdly turn on and off my sense of smell. I think I have a scent dyslexia, where I think something smells like something that no one else thinks it does.

If you are the new face of an entire fragrance from a billion-dollar fashion brand who has you out there doing interviews with fashion magazines, it’s hard to think of a funnier thing to say than “I think I have a scent dyslexia.” It’s important to note here that this is the first answer to the first question in the entire interview.

Hey, have you ever wondered what the Batman cowl smells like, or what previous iterations of the Batman cowl worn by previous Batmen smell like? Great news. Rob is happy to talk about that, too.

Once you put the cowl on, you have to get someone else to take it off, so there’s something about being locked into it. You’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna be dealing with this smell for the next 12 hours.” It’s funny—when I did the audition, I tried on all the different [cowls] and I wore Val Kilmer’s, and it still held a human scent.

I am suddenly furious that there’s no video of this. Show me Robert Pattinson trying on all the Batman cowls and discussing their scents. This is already more interesting than the concept of another take on Batman. I bet Clooney’s smells terrific.

Speaking of things Robert Pattinson did to prepare for a movie, here’s him explaining how his original take on his Mickey 17 character was basically “Steve-O in space,” right down to the voice.

I mean, it was definitely a big swing [laughs]. And when you haven’t prepared someone, at all—it was at a script read through, and there’s like 40 people around the table, and every single person looks up, and they’re like, “Oh! Oh, you’re doing a thing?” I realized quite quickly that maybe this was too large a swing. But if they ever make the Steve-O biopic, I’m ready.

Two notes here:

• I love this

• Someone please cast Robert Pattinson in a Steve-O biopic at once

There’s more. He also did an interview with Vanity Fair. It’s also incredible. I will once again excerpt my favorite parts while very much encouraging you to go read it in full. Here he is talking about making the commercial for the fragrance he is currently promoting.

For one, it’s very difficult to look cool wearing a motorcycle helmet, especially when you and your love interest are both wearing helmets, so you are vibrating, headbutting each other. There is literally no way to make this look cool. It’s impossible trying to ride a motorcycle on a beach in wet sand. And it’s also arctic temperatures, with freezing cold wind blowing in your face. It was a real test of what my Blue Steel face can withstand.

Fragrance commercials are always weird, like in a “here’s someone strutting through the desert in a leather jacket for no apparent reason” kind of way, so it’s nice to hear one of the people involved admit that. It’s also nice to have the word “headbutting” involved. And it’s also nice that he referenced Zoolander. My point is that it’s a really good answer.

So is this answer, which he gave to a question about space travel that was related to the aforementioned space movie he is out there trying to get people to see.

Okay, so you go in the space shuttle, and then you just look out windows. How different would it be from watching the TV, watching a screen saver? Other than being able to tell people. I wouldn’t mind doing a space walk, but being in the ship? I think I’d prefer to get a dog.

I mean, the first thing here is that he’s not wrong. I don’t even want to go on a cruise let alone into outer space. I also very much like that getting a dog is the alternative he went with, like anyone has ever said “Hmm, should I go to space or get a dog?” But mostly, I just want us all to stop and appreciate something special. Robert Pattinson is very good at press tours. Soak it all in, people. We’ll be back to boring celebrities parroting their talking points soon enough. It takes a special soul to give us quotes about the smell of the Batman mask and the uselessness of space travel.

FOUR: There is good news and bad news about The Righteous Gemstones