Released next week, Good Time is a drama-thriller flick from The Safdie Brothers, with Robert Pattinson, Barkhad Abdi and Jennifer Jason Leigh amongst the leading cast. Pattinson stars as Constantine ‘Connie’ Nikas, a man who jumps through hoops to try to get his brother Nick (Ben Safdie) out of jail following a botched bank job, while trying to evade the authorities himself. Having already picked up some huge critical acclaim, expectations are high.
However, the film has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, after Pattinson made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and seemed to claim he had been asked to perform a sex act on a dog while on the set of the movie. Speaking about a particular scene he revealed: “There’s a drug dealer who busts into the room, and I was sleeping with the dog and basically giving the dog a hand job,” before claiming that the director and dog’s owner gave him permission to masturbate the pooch for real. Fortunately, he refused, and he says they instead made a “fake red rocket” to use in the scene.
Since the interview hit the small screen, controversy has flared up, with animal rights organization PETA coming forward and praising the actor for his refusal to “molest” the canine. The story blew up so much in fact, that Pattinson was forced to release a statement (via IndieWire), in which he claims he was joking about the entire thing.
If the story told by Pattinson was indeed only a joke, it seems odd that he went into such detail and even quoted the director and the dog’s handler, who was on the set, going into detail about how the dog’s owner had given him tips onto how he would successfully be able to perform the act.
“The story I told on Jimmy Kimmel last night seems to have spiraled out of control. What didn’t come across is that this was supposed to be a joke. No one at all expected or assumed that anything like that would happen on the Good Time set. We are all huge animal lovers and would obviously never do anything to harm an animal. Everyone involved in Good Time are amazing professionals and have come together to make a movie that I’m extremely proud of. I feel embarrassed that in the moment, I was trying to make Jimmy laugh, only to create confusion and a false impression.”
For now, though, we have to take Pattinson at his word. Unless somebody else who was on the set is willing to speak out and corroborate his story, we must assume that this was a case of a terrible joke blown out of proportion, no matter how much this may look like damage control. With the movie’s release just next week, we imagine this is a controversy that could mean it takes a hit in the box office, but the numbers will speak for themselves when the time is right. Whichever way this one goes, we imagine Good Time is a film that’s going to have tongues wagging for the foreseeable future.
Next: Robert Pattinson Was Almost Fired From Twilight
Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live, IndieWire
- Good Time Release Date: 2017-08-11
