Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Bong Joon Ho Leave London Starstruck at ‘Mickey 17’ World Premiere
Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and writer-director Bong Joon Ho were among those walking the red carpet for the world premiere of Mickey 17 on Thursday evening that left Londoners starstruck.
Mickey 17 is the director’s first feature since his historic Oscar sweep with Parasite. “Bong is one of the directors I just wanted to work with my entire career,” Pattinson told The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet. “I saw Memories of Murder when I was a teenager, and he was just one of my bucket list directors. And he was absolutely incredible.”
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Calling him “just a complete master,” Pattinson said he was proud to get the chance to be “working with one of the top five directors working today.”
The star didn’t know Ackie, who plays Mickey’s love interest, before the film. “I just got on with her really well from the beginning,” Pattinson shared with THR. “We went out for a drink, and she’s hilarious.”
Pattinson also didn’t know anything about the story of the film before he agreed to the lead role. “I wanted to work with Director Bong so much, and I kind of said yes before I’d even seen the script, and he wouldn’t tell me what it was about,” he said with a laugh. “I mean, this is a pretty bizarre movie when you see the script. You’re like: What!? How is this happening? When you see how bizarre the script is and then see that the scale is like Star Wars, I mean it’s really, really, really crazy. But I just like being surprised and inspired by things.”
Ackie told THR that the relationship between Mickey and her character Nasha is central to the film. “It’s at the core of the story,” she said. “Amongst everything else, it is a love story. There’s something so special about Nasha and the way that she loves Mickey through all of his phases and is willing to fiercely defend him. I think we all need a Nasha in our corner.”
What did her friends say when they found out she would play opposite heartthrob Pattinson? “They freaked out!” she replied with a laugh.
Ackie also sang the praises of Bong. “It was a dream,” she told THR. “I have worked with amazing directors, and he managed to combine compassion and warmth and joy mixed with preparation and dedication. And the fact that he manages to mingle all those things together and produce work like this is insane to me. I can only just stand in awe.”
In the film, Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, a space colonist known as an expendable. Expendables do the most dangerous jobs the colony has to offer, and often die in the process, only to be brought back to life via human printing technology.
Pattinson plays Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 in most of the story. At CinemaCon, the star said he gave the men different characteristics. Mickey 17 is beaten down by life, but happy to be part of the time, while Mickey 18 is like “an evil brother” who “is out of control.”
“The book features the concept of human printing, and in that, there’s just so much human drama,” Bong told THR at Thursday’s world premiere about why the book that the movie is based on spoke to him. “So I was immediately captivated by it.”
Edward Ashton originated the world shown in the film in his 2022 novel Mickey 7, which centers on the seventh iteration of Mickey Barnes. For the movie, however, that number was increased to 17. “The number is the number of times he dies. I killed him 10 times more,” Bong noted to laughs at CinemaCon in April when he introduced the first footage of the film. “It’s a sci-fi movie, but it’s a human story.”
On Thursday, he told THR: “Of course, I wanted him to go through many more deaths (than in the novel), but it’s not like I wanted to create a serial killer movie. Ultimately, I also wanted to show him overcome the suffering and provide a piece of hope and optimism through his journey.”
Human printing has some parallels with the current debate about AI and its role in society. “It is this advanced technology, but no one knows what it is and how to exactly deal with it,” Bong offered. “And I think it’s the same with AI. People talk about how amazing AI is, but we’re at a loss on what to do with it and all the ethical complications that arise from it.”
Yeun was welcomed on the red carpet by excited fans chanting his name like they did with other castmembers. And the actor told THR how special it was for him to work with the director again after their collaboration on Okja. “He’s one of my favorite people and, obviously, one of my favorite artists,” Yeun said. “Getting to work with him a second time around was a joy — having a shorthand, having an understanding, we just played.”
What makes Bong so special? “First off, craft-wise, skill-wise, he’s just incredibly devoted, and the amount of prep and the amount of care he has for the whole thing really allows everybody participating with him to engage with it in their own way and bring themselves to it,” Yeun explained. “But beyond that, he’s also an incredible artist who is just diving deep into the well of creativity and not trying to tell [us] what to do, but letting it reveal itself.”
Producers Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Dooho Choi also hit the event in the British capital before the sci-fi black comedy brings glamour to the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival.
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