Robert Pattinson has spoken about his “ferocious” masturbation scene in The Lighthouse, explaining how he pulled it off…
The Witch director Robert Eggers returns today with the release his sophomore film, the claustrophobic and highly-acclaimed psychological horror The Lighthouse, which sees Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson portraying two lighthouse keepers who find themselves on a surreal descent into madness.
During a promotional interview with The New York Times, Pattinson has spoken about his first day on set – which just so happened to be a scene of his character “ferociously” masturbating in a shed:
“Well, my first shot was this ferocious masturbation scene. It’s always nice to do something massive for your opening shot, and I went really massive on the first take. It was a 180 from everything we’d done in rehearsal, and I could see Robert [Eggers] a little in shock afterward. But I was like, ‘Ok, cool, I didn’t get told to stop, so I’ll keep going in that direction.’ As soon as I’d done that, it was like the road started getting paved.”
SEE ALSO: Read our review of The Lighthouse here
It seems that first day set the tone for the rest of the shoot, which was said to have been so gruelling and physically demanding that Pattinson and Dafoe almost came to blows, and the future Batman actor stating: “[I was] basically unconscious the whole time. It was crazy. I spent so much time making myself throw up. Pissing my pants. It’s the most revolting thing.”
From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind modern horror masterpiece The Witch, comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.