L'interview :
PARIS — Robert Pattinson is no stranger to scents. Pre-beard, the actor would pretend to shave, apply shaving cream, use a razor, then cologne. But after that time, there was a long hiatus.
“To be honest, until I started working for Dior, I hadn’t worn perfume in years,” said the longstanding Dior Homme fragrance ambassador on Friday morning, sitting in a suite in Le Bristol Paris hotel.
It’s the day of the Dior men’s show, and he’s in town to front the new Dior Homme Eau de Toilette, conceived by the house’s perfumer-creator François Demachy.
“I really do like all the products from the line,” said Pattinson. “The new one, it smells delicious.”
The Blaze, comprised of cousins Guillaume Alric and Jonathan Alric, directed the film campaign for the latest fragrance.
“They’re great directors,” said Pattinson, referring also to Romain Gavras, who lensed the prior Dior Homme ad. “I wanted to work with them anyway, to do other things.”
Pattinson saw The Blaze’s treatment — elements of the screenplay — for the new campaign way before it was filmed, and it included dance.
“I don’t dance — at all. Ever,” admitted the actor, who recently was in movies such as “The Lighthouse,” “Waiting for the Barbarians” and “The King.” “The best parts of their music videos are always a kind of interesting, experimental dance sequence. I think subconsciously I really wanted to do that, but I just don’t have the capability.
“When I saw the treatment, I was terrified for months going into it, dreaded the day when it was going to happen,” Pattinson said.
Fast-forward to that day, when he ended up in an empty club in Brooklyn, N.Y., on a spotlighted dance floor. Pattinson danced there, while The Blaze guys danced in sympathy near the camera, so he didn’t feel too alone.
“We did four takes, and I was kind of getting used to it a little bit,” Pattinson said. But then he learned dancers were being called in.
“I was like: ‘What do you mean, dancers? There was no mention of other people in this,’” he said. It wasn’t two or three dancers, either. Two-hundred professionals were brought in to dance around Pattinson.
“It was one of the most unbelievably terrifying experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “I might as well have streaked down the middle of the Champs-Élysées.”
Pattinson thought his fear of dance had become a distant memory.
