Robert Pattinson called Zendaya for help over a scene that was making him “crazy”.
Pattinson, 39, and Zendaya, 28, star opposite one another in the forthcoming film The Drama. Announced in August last year, the new movie follows a couple whose romance takes an unexpected turn before their wedding.
The script has thrown up some roadblocks for Pattinson, however, with The Batman star admitting to going “crazy” over one scene in particular.
“We had a scene together that was driving me crazy,” Pattinson said in an interview with the French magazine Premiere. “I was desperately looking for its meaning, writing pages and pages of textual analysis.”
It was his co-star who eventually helped him through it, said the actor.
“I ended up calling Zendaya the night before shooting the scene,” he said. “I shared my doubts with her, I spoke for two hours, and after a while, very calmly, she made me understand that the line just said what it meant to say, that there was no hidden meaning.”
“And there I was going crazy for three days,” he added.
Pattinson’s admission does not come as a total surprise given the filmmakers behind the movie. Director Kristoffer Borgli is known for twisty stories, having previously made 2023’s Dream Scenario in which Nicolas Cage plays a college professor whose life is turned upside down when strangers start seeing him in their dreams.
Robert Pattinson at the ‘Mickey 17’ press conference at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival (AFP via Getty Images)
The Drama is also produced by horror genius Ari Aster, best known for Hereditary and Midsommar.
It’s not uncommon for Pattinson to fixate on a film, it seems. Elsewhere in the interview, the Twilight star told the publication that he almost had “a mental breakdown” while shooting Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love – another marital drama, this time starring Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence.
It was less the plot that rattled him than it was the dancing scenes.
Zendaya’s perfect nude is a deep satin lipstick (Alamy/PA)
“I did this movie with Lynne Ramsay, and she’s a really good dancer. And Jennifer Lawrence is a really good dancer. They just find it so easy,” Pattinson said of being asked to freestyle dance for the role.
“They’re like, ‘Just dance, it’s just music playing, just dance,’” Pattinson said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to have a mental breakdown when this happens. We need to either choreograph it or cut it.’
“And they’re like, ‘No, just dance, stop being all freak.’ It came to the day, and I was sweating so much, the insides of my trousers, with sweat, were wet.”
Both The Drama and Die, My Love are expected for release sometime in 2025 with exact dates yet to be announced.
