Here’s what David Cronenberg and his cast of A-listers had to say about Cosmopolis at a press conference organized to promote their new film:

David Cronenberg: “With novelists like DeLillo [on whose novel the movie is based] there is such depth to what he does, and the resonances of the dialogue is fantastic. It’s like the Bible. There’s a quote for every situation in the screenplay of Cosmopolis, and I don’t take credit for it because I really just transcribed it… [T]he richness and the depth and the complexity [are] things you don’t get from most screenplays.”

“You don’t really ask an actor to play a symbol. You don’t say ‘you represent,’ or ‘you are the symbol of Wall Street,’ or ‘American capitalism.’ How do you play that? You can’t do that. It’s only after the fact that you can start to assign these things and analyze them that way.”

Paul Giamatti: “[My character] is kind of in love with [Packer, played by Robert Pattinson]. There’s a kind of strange love that’s so strong, [he] hates him [and has] to kill him… Beyond the fact that [my character] represents the 99%, it was a guy who’s gone crazy in his love for this person he feels is going to save him somehow.”

Robert Pattinson: “You hope that there’s something about what you’ve brought to the part in every job you do which people like… I liked the Twilight scripts in the same way that I liked this.”