Director Lance Oppenheim secured Robert Pattinson’s starring role in the A24 satirical drama Primetime through an unconventional casting approach: shipping 200 canisters of nicotine pouches straight to the actor’s home. Initially, Pattinson was only slated to serve as a producer on the project rather than step in front of the camera.
The film, which opened on September 25, follows the tumultuous rise of television presenter Chris Hansen during the 2006 broadcast era of NBC’s controversial reality investigation series To Catch a Predator. Oppenheim made the leap to narrative filmmaking after directing documentaries such as Some Kind of Heaven and Spermworld, and he badly wanted Pattinson to portray the driven and relentless host.
The Script Rewrite and the Nicotine Shortage
To help change the actor’s mind, screenwriter Ajon Singh spent a full week aggressively re-tooling the screenplay. Meanwhile, Oppenheim devised a much more personal, albeit bizarre, strategy to bypass standard agent channels.
According to interviews given to Vulture and reported across entertainment outlets, Pattinson was heavily grappling with a habit involving Zyn nicotine pouches. Compounding the situation, a retail shortage of the product plagued the United States at the time. Seizing the opening, Oppenheim coordinated with a friend in Canada to procure and dispatch 200 canisters of the hard-to-find product directly to Los Angeles.
The ‘Chris Han-Zyn’ Care Package
The bulk shipment of nicotine canisters arrived accompanied by the latest draft of Singh’s revised screenplay. Oppenheim deliberately addressed the entire package to “Chris Han-Zyn,” combining the television investigator’s surname with the brand moniker. The opening line of the enclosed letter greeted the actor with the exact same playful pun.
The gambit proved successful. After looking over the newly revised script and receiving the eccentric parcel, Pattinson contacted the director to confirm he would take on the lead role. Oppenheim later described the moment of confirmation to media outlets as being akin to LeBron James announcing his move to the Miami Heat.
Critical Reception and Real-World Response
Primetime proved to be a commercial and critical success, pulling in nearly $50 million worldwide against a modest $15 million production budget. Alongside Pattinson, the film stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, and Phoebe Bridgers. Critics largely praised Pattinson’s performance for its frantic, claustrophobic intensity, drawing favorable comparisons to intense psychological thrillers.
However, the real-life Chris Hansen expressed strong displeasure over the project. In various interviews and video statements, Hansen criticized the film as a work of fiction that unfairly distorted his personal life and family relationships, rating the cinematic impression harshly while using the publicity to promote his own true-crime network ventures.
