By now, it seems fairly obvious that this year’s Cannes Film Festival will serve as a coming out party of sorts for Robert Pattinson, at least, a coming out party for the actor’s talents beyond just sucking blood and turning girls into emotion pancakes, as he’s been doing for years with his work in The Twilight Saga. The actor’s performance in David Cronenberg‘s Cosmopolis looks better with every trailer released, and the film’s in-competition premiere at the festival should be a watershed moment for Pattinson. But Pattinson has now added another Cannes-centric project that will help establish him as an actor who is more than capable of breaking out of Edward Cullen’s coffin.
Pattinson has signed on to star in Jean-Stephane Sauvaire‘s (Johnny Mad Dog) Mission: Blacklist. The film’s script has been adapted from its source material, military interrogator Eric Maddox’s (written with Davin Seay) novel “Mission: Black List #1,” by Band of Brothers scribe Erik Jendresen. The book is described as “a psychological thriller that details the true, inside story of the search for Saddam Hussein and the interrogator, Eric Maddox, who spearheaded his capture.” The film will be sold at the Cannes Film Market by Embankment Films.
A former Army Ranger and a highly decorated officer, Maddox is a tremendously interesting man with a ton of stories to tell. This is the sort of dude whose “I helped capture Saddam Hussein” story is but one tale in a very thick book, and his life and career should provide Pattinson’s meatiest role yet.
You can check out a little bit more about Maddox and his book at its official site, and you can even read some pages over at Amazon.