Robert Pattinson’s latest movie is wild. A gritty New York crime thriller that’s as exhilarating as it is straight-up disturbing in its acts of violence, Good Time is easily Pattison’s best role to date. As Connie Nikas, a small-time crook desperate to get his mentally challenged brother (Benny Safdie) out of jail, Pattinson gives a performance that’s not too showy or loud, but grounded in a composed and unshakable intensity. The latest film from the Safdie brothers (Heaven Knows What) is brimming with sequences that push the limits of its audience’s comfort, but there was almost one scene that would’ve gone much, much further.

While stopping by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night, the actor revealed that he almost shot one sexually explicit scene involving a dog (yes, you read that right). In the film, Connie has a connection with dogs and even says at one point he thinks he was a dog in a past life. In one scene Connie’s restraining a vicious dog in a bedroom as a drug dealer barges in by calmly petting the pup. But on Kimmel Pattison reveals how the scene was originally written:

There’s a drug dealer who bursts into the room and I was sleeping with the dog and basically giving the dog a hand job. I asked the trainer, because the director was like, ‘Just do it for real, man. Don’t be a p—y!’ And then the dog’s owner was like, ‘Well he’s a breeder. I mean, you can. You just gotta massage the inside of his thighs.’

 

But it was all too much for Pattinson and he refused to actually give the dog a hand job, instead using a fake dog penis. The actual scene in the movie is brief – first you see Pattinson petting the dog, you know, not sexually, and once the drug dealer arrives you only see him on the bed with the animal for an instant.

It’s a relief the actual masturbation scene was trimmed out of the final cut, unless the Safdies decide to include it in an extended cut down the line (but please, don’t). I love this movie, but it is a little gross the directors goaded their actor into jerking off an animal with language threatening his masculinity – Surely there are other ways to give your actors direction than “Don’t be a p—y.” But it’s not that surprising the guys behind the heroin drama that shows a brutal suicide attempt in its opening would write a scene like this. Either way, prepare yourself for a thrilling, disorienting headrush sans canine sex when Good Time hits theaters August 11.

UPDATE: According to co-director Josh Safdie, Pattinson’s story, apparently, never happened:

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