Skipping 'cut' sparked unexpected magic, says Robert Pattinson about the 'Primetime' director
Robert Pattinson says Lance Oppenheim’s unconventional way of shooting sparked on-screen magic — and you’ll want to hear how that approach shaped the film’s most surprising moments.
On the set of Primetime, first-time feature director Lance Oppenheim routinely let scenes run past their scripted endpoints, refusing to call “cut” to see what might happen if the moment just kept breathing. Robert Pattinson says that unexpected extra beat is where some of the movie ’s best surprises came from.
Let it roll
Pattinson told Film Updates that Oppenheim’s approach initially threw him, especially when a scene had a clear button on the page. But the director’s instinct to keep the camera rolling sometimes unearthed sparks no one planned for.
“The amount of times where Lance just wouldn’t cut at the end of the scene and he said, ‘I just want to see where it goes.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s not gonna go anywhere. It’s literally, that’s the end of the scene.’ But sometimes, weirdly, it suddenly would.”
He added that playing past the boundary turned into a kind of on-set game—awkward at first, then oddly freeing—often yielding an unguarded reaction that made the final cut. For Oppenheim, known for vérité-leaning documentaries, it’s a natural extension of his style in his first narrative feature.
Early reviews
That gamble appears to be paying off. With initial reactions in, Primetime is sitting at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the film’s sharp craft and Pattinson’s shape-shifting turn as a fictionalized riff on “To Catch a Predator ” host Chris Hansen.
Reviewers have singled out the movie’s distinctive look and the way Pattinson’s performance locks into it—an unusual pairing that many say clicks precisely because of choices like the ones Oppenheim made on set.