The 2017 film Good Time is not the only collaboration between Robert Pattinson and director Josh Safdie, the director has revealed.
In an interview at London’s BFI Southbank theater, the Marty Supreme director let slip that Pattinson, 39, had an invisible role in his ping-pong-themed Oscar contender.
“No one knows this, but that voice—the commentator, the umpire—is Pattinson,” Safdie, 41, divulged. “It’s like a little Easter egg. Nobody knows about that.”
For the film, Pattinson lent his voice to play a ping-pong commentator at the 1949 British Open, where Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) defeats Hungarian champion Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig) in the Open’s semi-finals.
The director said that Pattinson got the voice acting gig because he was on set during shooting and had the accent he was looking for.
“He came and watched some stuff, and I was like, I don’t know any British people. So he’s the umpire,” Safdie admitted.
Pattinson starred in a previous Safdie film, Good Time, which was co-directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. The brother co-directors shot several movies together, including Uncut Gems, before splitting up in early 2024 to direct their own films.
The acclaimed director’s comments provide context for a viral internet clip in which Pattinson discussed working with the Safdies again while hooked up to a lie detector.
Pattinson emphatically said “yes” to working with the Safdies again when asked by Die My Love co-star Jennifer Lawrence, but his answer was deemed deceptive. Both Pattinson and Lawrence erupted in apparent disbelief.
“That’s crazy,” Pattinson exclaimed at the time.
Now, fans may gather that the actor’s apparent uncertainty stemmed from his having already worked with the older Safdie director.
