Some fans of Robert Pattinson have been asking did I get much of a chance to meet him when he was working on the TBMH. Well I wasn’t on set much – just three days, plus I attended the read-through at ITV and the cast briefing session before filming started. I would like to have seen more, but I had teaching commitments and two small children to take care of, and the journey between Shropshire and Yorkshire proved tricky. However, I remember watching them film the scene where Charlotte talks to Daniel about being pregnant, and they’d decided to set it outside with the actors sitting together on a garden bench. Yorkshire rain was drizzling down and Rob and Holliday were forced to shelter between takes under a big black golfing umbrella. I felt pretty sorry for them! Droplets of water beaded Rob’s velvet jacket and his glasses kept steaming up. Holliday looked frozen to death. But they carried on and did a grand job. Towards the end of the shoot, when we were in the studio, I shared a coffee with Robert and asked him about how he’d got into drama. Although only 19, he’d already appeared in one of the Harry Potter films, and while we were shooting in Huddersfield, the BBC screened The Haunted Airman in which he played the lead role. Rob told me that he’d caught the acting bug while he was still in school, which of course was the relatively recent past for him. But the incident I remember most is from the cast briefing, which took place in a church basement in London. This is where the actors get to quiz the writer on their characters’ motives and backgrounds. Holliday was asking about how to play Charlotte, and what elements defined her. So from the book I read a speech Daniel gives, where he’s trying to convey to Charlotte what a strong and independent person she is. He asks her if she’s ever smoked, and she says no, and goes on to give a bit of a lecture on why she hates cigarettes. She says that when she was offered her first cigarette, she coolly weighed up the pros and cons and made a decision and stuck to it. Daniel’s delighted with this response because, he claims, most people want to fit in at any cost whereas Charlotte’s always her own boss. Anyway, shortly after I’d read this extract, the director called a break. Rob looked across at me and said, ‘Well, I’m off outside.’ He waggled his eyebrows at me. ‘For a smoke.’ It still makes me smile when I remember the dry way he said it.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:55:04 +0000
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