10 Interesting Facts About Robert Pattinson Recent Movie "High Life"

Robert Pattinson at an event for High Life (2018). Image courtesy: gettyimages.com

What you have probably known

The story takes place beyond the solar system in a future that seems like the present. It is about a group of criminals who accept a mission in space to become the subjects of a human reproduction experiment. They find themselves in the most unimaginable situation after a storm of cosmic rays hit the ship. A father (Robert Pattinson as Monte) and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.

Interesting Fact 1

The original idea of High Life comes from the day when the film director Claire Denis joked to Vincent Gallo while filming Trouble Every Day (2001): 'You're such a pain in the a** that I'm going to make a movie where you'll be alone in space.'

Interesting Fact 2

Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche previously appeared together in David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis (2012) as a billionaire and his mistress who are having sex in a limousine.

Interesting Fact 3

Robert Pattinson had seen Denis's film White Material (2009) in 2011 and was immediately transfixed. Being a big cinephile, loving her previous films and wanting to work with her, it took him 4 years till Denis agreed to meet with him in 2015 after Pattinson got his hands on the script in the same year. It took another two years till filming began in fall 2017.

Interesting Fact 4

The 14-months old girl who plays Willow is the daughter of one of Robert Pattinson's best friends, musician Sam Bradley. They know each other from their school days back in London where they grew up together. Shooting was about to start and they couldn't find the right baby. Then Pattinson got the idea to cast her.

Interesting Fact 5

Principal photography was during September and October 2017 in a film studio in Cologne, Germany. A few miles next to it was the EAC, the European Astronaut Centre, at which the cast and director trained before filming started.

Interesting Fact 6

The script, which Claire Denis wrote with her longtime collaborator, screenwriter Jean-Pol Fargeau, was first written in French. It was rumored English novelist Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird worked on the English translation, but Denis didn't see eye to eye with them and ultimately rejected it, stating that, 'We don't have the same philosophy of life.'

Interesting Fact 7

The director Claire Denis had in mind this project since 2002. She has been carrying it around for many years and thought she would have to abandon it given the financial issues. When she got the idea of the story, she thought about Vincent Gallo to play the lead. However, Denis later wrote the film keeping Philip Seymour Hoffman in mind and was deeply saddened by his untimely demise in 2014. Having no other actor in mind for the role, she felt lost about the project. In 2015, Robert Pattinson got his hands on the script. Being a big cinephile, loving her previous films and wanting to work with Denis, he had been trying to meet her for 4 years since seeing White Material (2009) for the first time in 2011. Denis was intrigued and liked him as an actor, but initially thought he was not right for the part because Pattinson was too young given the fact that in the script, the protagonist was supposed to be in his late 40s. She also thought he was too famous for her kind of cinema and found it strange that he had such a strong desire to work with her, she was even afraid to meet him, since she thought it could not be him. But Pattinson would have taken even a supporting role to be in her film and after she met with some other actors, she agreed to see him in L.A. There, she realized that he was the right one for the role of Monte, with Pattinson being the only actor who really touched her, stating that, "When I met him, everything changed - he was already in the film. When he asked me, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'It's already too late, it's you or nobody else.' It's so easy to love him - I liked him immediately - what a nice and open man. He has something very special, such an intriguing and mysterious guy... he was caring so much, you know? He has like an inner, naked youth. I thought he was going to give me a lot." It took another two years till filming began in fall 2017.

Interesting Fact 8

Danish-Icelandic conceptual artist Ólafur Eliasson, who is known for sculptures and large scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water and air temperature, designed and created the spaceship.

Interesting Fact 9

It's the eighth time that English musician and lead singer of the Indie band Tindersticks, Stuart Staples, worked with Claire Denis and composed the music for her films.

Interesting fact 10

In the script-writing process, Claire Denis collaborated with French astrophysicist and philosopher Aurélien Barrau, who is specialized in particle astrophysics, black holes and cosmology.

The film was first shown on 9^th of September 2018 at Toronto International Film Festival.  The Release dates for other countries are:

Release Dates 

Canada	9 September 2018	(Toronto International Film Festival)
Spain	26 September 2018	(San Sebastian Film Festival)
Switzerland	28 September 2018	(Zurich Film Festival)
Greece	30 September 2018	(Athens International Film and Video Festival)
Poland	October 2018	(Warsaw Film Festival)
USA	2 October 2018	(New York Film Festival)
South Korea	6 October 2018	(Busan International Film Festival)
Germany	7 October 2018	(Cologne Film Festival)
Spain	13 October 2018	(Sitges Film Festival)
France	17 October 2018	(Lumière Film Festival Lyon)
Portugal	November 2018	(Lisbon & Sintra Film Festival)
France	7 November 2018
Russia	7 February 2019

source: imdb.com