Former deadshit vampire and current famous actor Robert Pattinson has lived through every arachnophobic’s worst nightmare and lived to tell the tale.
Like, if the thought a spider crawling up your neck and into your hair makes you involuntarily spasm, you might want to click away now.
Pattinson is right now doing the press circuit for his latest film ‘The Lost City of Z‘, about an early 20th century British explorer (Charlie Hunnam) obsessed with finding a fabled civilisation deep within the Amazon. (Pattinson plays the explorer’s trusty companion, Henry Costin.)
Filming took place largely in the Colombian jungle. You know what’s also in the Colombian jungle? Spiders. Fuckloads of them. And director James Grey wanted to film the bloody things.
“There was one that was called a Brazilian wandering spider,” Pattinson told Vulture. “James, who is normally very neurotic about anything wildlife related, saw this spider, and it is incredibly beautiful, and he was like, ‘We need to get the B camera, get on this, get on this. Somebody get it to move.’ And he was prodding this spider, which is like six-inches wide, with a stick, trying to get it to do something interesting. And the Colombian crew was like, ‘That is the most potent spider in the world.’ There were a lot of situations like that.”
This is what a Brazilian wandering spider looks like, btw.
One bite will cause intense pain, inflammation, loss of muscle control, breathing problems, eventual asphyxiation, and extremely uncomfortable erections that last for hours and possibly make ya’ impotent. Luckily the anti-venom is widely available, but not exactly something you want to have to use.
However, that story is nothing compared to Pattinson’s other one about sleeping in a room full of massive spiders every single goddamn night.
“There was this weird thing that happened in the hotel,” he told Vulture. “It flooded everyday at 3 p.m., because we went in the rainy season. No one realised it was the rainy season, and somehow all these massive spiders would float into our room. At night there would be like an inch of water in the room, it was kind of terrifying. I made a little hammock on top of my bed just hanging there, in terror.”
Get absolutely fucking fucked, mate.
Photo: Harry Potter / Getty / Pascal Le Segratain.
