{"id":636517,"date":"2026-10-20T17:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636517\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T17:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T17:52:11","slug":"robert-pattinson-bribed-with-200-zyn-canisters-to-star-in-primetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/636517\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Pattinson Bribed With 200 Zyn Canisters to Star in ‘Primetime’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHow do you get an A-list actor to star in your movie? If it\u2019s Robert Pattinson<\/a>, the answer is a whole lot of nicotine.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cBatman\u201d and \u201cOdyssey\u201d star is generating Oscar buzz for his portrayal of \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen in A24\u2019s \u201cPrimetime<\/a>.\u201d But Pattinson was originally planning to stay behind the camera, serving only as a producer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat is until \u201cPrimetime\u201d screenwriter Ajon Singh retooled the script to convince Pattinson to take the lead role, while director Lance Oppenheim thought of a brilliant bribe.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRob, at the time, was grappling with a Zyn addiction,\u201d Oppenheim told Vulture<\/a>, referring to the nicotine pouch brand. There was a Zyn shortage in the U.S. at the time, so Oppenheim recruited a friend in Canada to send 200 canisters to Pattinson\u2019s home in Los Angeles. Then, Oppenheim dropped off the latest draft of \u201cPrimetime\u201d with a letter that began, \u201cDear Chris Han-Zyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPattinson called the director after reading the new script and said he would take the role. Said Oppenheim, \u201cIt was like LeBron making the announcement that he was joining the Heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPrimetime\u201d opened on Sept. 25 and landed on the higher end of box office expectations<\/a>, raking in nearly $50 million worldwide against a $15 million production budget. The film also caught the attention of Hansen himself, who has lashed out against the movie and Pattinson\u2019s performance as a \u201ccomplete work of fiction.\u201d Hansen\u2019s review was an anomaly; critics generally rallied behind the film, with Variety\u2018s Owen Gleiberman calling Pattinson a \u201cnew kind of movie star\u201d with \u201cnervy dyspeptic magnetism.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s a star for the age of entropy,\u201d Gleiberman wrote, \u201cfor an era when everything is falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you get an A-list actor to star in your movie? If it\u2019s Robert Pattinson, the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69,23735,20401],"class_list":["post-636517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-primetime","tag-robert-pattinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}