Chris Hansen was the first to speak out against it Primetime, the new movie starring Robert Pattinson as a former TV host. The film chronicles Hansen’s rise and the birth of his iconic show, To Catch a Predator. In the show Hansen caught American men in sting operations as they were trying to meet minors for sex. The show was a hit on TV in the early 2000s, but it all but stopped after a subject on the show committed suicide.
Pattinson plays Hansen in Primetime, directed by Lance Oppenheimer and reveals how the show really began and what happened on that fateful night when Bill Conrad shot himself. Amidst the praise the film is receiving and the criticism of its subject matter, Chris Hansen, writer Ajon Singh spoke to Hindustan Times about the reception, praise and brickbats. Part:
HT: In one of your interviews, you said that you were fascinated by To Catch a Predator when you were growing up. I know that Dan (played by Skyler Gisondo) is based on a combination of people who worked on it. But was he also a surrogate for you, as a young boy who was fascinated by the whole thing?
Ajon Singh: I think that’s a very astute observation. Yes, I would say. Also, a big part of it was the idea that it was like a dream and her association with this dream, and then the dream was not exactly what she thought it would be. Character Decoy Dan struggled in Hollywood for many years. He had worked odd jobs, and he was really trying to find his place in his career, and I felt like I was in a similar situation. I was struggling for many years. I didn’t know exactly what my subject was. That was always the goal with Decoy Dan: His character is mostly about someone who is shown a dream and then gets the opportunity to reach it, which was my experience as well. Then, finally, it seems like he’s gone and has found a way to escape, but then he gets the siren call of that dream that calls him back to this strange, ugly world of Hollywood.
HT: This film is very different from a regular biopic because it has a sense of magical realism. Was that something you put into the script, or was that something that came when Lance came on board?
Ajon Singh: The original script was mostly a political thriller. It was more about the entertainment industry and law enforcement. The thrust of the drama and the story is largely the same. The idea that Rob and Lance came up with was that Chris Hansen is actually the Angel of Punishment. One thing we all talked about was the mental toll. That’s the term we’ve used over and over again: the mental impact that comes with repeatedly humiliating and punishing people in this line of work. What effect does this have on a man? So how do you go from something small and materialistic or superficial to something so cosmic by the end of the film? So this is a transformation.
ht: What was a moment when Rob surprised you with his interpretation of something you wrote in the film?
Ajon Singh: He surprised me in every scene. That’s incredible. Every single version of every take was fascinating. That’ll take eight takes. Each of them will be different. I would have been thrilled if he had done even one of those takes, but he did eight takes which were all very good. But what comes to mind is the view of the campus. The way we wrote it felt kind of standard, but the way he always envisioned Chris was as a weak wizard. So that’s why he’s kind of wandering around the room. He has a very tortured expression on his face, and he actually spits out the words. The other thing that really impressed me is the initial sting, the way he does that. We didn’t want to do this photorealistic imitation of the original show. We wanted to create a dramatic, elevated version of that. And he turned it into a really horrible thing. It’s almost like a Dracula performance.
HT: Were you surprised by Chris Hansen’s reactions to the film even before it was released? He was quite strongly against it. Were you surprised, or were you expecting it?
Ajon Singh: I really didn’t know what Chris Hansen’s reaction would be. I hoped that he would like the film. But what really surprised me and is very exciting is that when he did his press conference after the film and even weeks after the film was released he kept asking people to go and watch the film. He says, ‘Go see it, go make up your mind.’ This is, in a way, a perfect description of who he is. He can have his strong opinions all he wants, but at the end of the day, he still wants you to go see it. He has spent some advertising time in the United States ahead of the film. So he is promoting the film without caring whether he likes it or not. I think it’s a real surprise and joy for me. Somehow, it feels like we’re working together, even though we’re not.
HT: There’s this discussion online that Primetime somehow portrays Chris Hansen as a bad guy. This somehow discredits his work. Did you ever feel like reacting to that?
Ajon Singh: First of all, I’m very keen to let the art speak for itself. So, if people want to debate, it’s up to them. I firmly believe that for most of these people, their issues with the film have been resolved in this. We talk about people in power. We expose a high-ranking politician in the film. We expose religious leaders. All this is part of the story of the film. I think if they just watched the movie, they could see that we’re really on the same side on a lot of these things. But we live in a culture of reading headlines. I guess that’s the internet. And I appreciate that a lot of people are defending the film as well. And when they defend the film, it’s usually coming from a place of ‘I’ve seen it.’ This is not that thing.
Currently primetime is going on in theatres.