Little Ashes

"Little Ashes" is set against the backdrop of Fascist Spain in 1922. It follows the love affair between Salvador Dali and poet Federico Garcia Lorcathree. Taking its title from Salvador Dali's 1927-28 painting Cenicitas, it stars Robert Pattinson as Dali, Javier Beltran as Federico Garcia Lorca and Matthew McNulty as Luis Bunuel. This drama film from director Paul Morrison has been premiered at the 16th annual Raindance film festival in London back in October, 2009.

Paul Morrison, the director of "Little Ashes," a film about the strange, complex and forbidden love between Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca and surrealist painter Salvador Dali, talks exclusively with The Dish Rag about casting "Twilight" hero Robert Pattinson in the period piece.

At the time, Pattinson was just another undiscovered young British actor (he'd done "Harry Potter"), and little did Morrison know that this young man would draw unparalleled attention to his small film, which opens May 8, without a US premiere.

Paul Morrison: I love the fact that an audience is going to be drawn to the film, partly through Rob, that wouldn't otherwise get to this kind of movie. We played the Belfast Film Festival last week and there were quite a few of Rob's fans there, not the majority by any means, and they loved it and they really took to it, so it's great that kids will be reached by the movie.

Dish Rag: Playing Salvador Dali is a daunting role for a young actor.

PM: Yeah, I don't think Rob realized what he was getting into when he agreed to do it, but he really worked hard at it, he really grappled with it, and I think he's done something very extraordinary. It's so difficult to do, because you have to tread light all the time between playing Dali as a young lovable young man, which he was, and suggesting the kind of pastiche of himself that he became in later life, that he presented to the public in later life, and that's a very tall order, and I think Rob pulled it off.


DR: The resemblance is actually quite amazing.

PM: The intensity was important, but I wasn't really looking for resemblance. And in the performance, I wasn't looking for mimicry either.

DR: How did you find Robert Pattinson?