'Primetime's Alex Winter Says Robert Pattinson Is Taking Risks Other Movie Stars Won't

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Published Oct 10, 2026, 2:40 AM EDT

Summary

Collider's Steve Weintraub talks with Alex Winter for Primetime.
Winter discusses how Primetime uses To Catch a Predator to spotlight today's media chaos and moral exploitation.
He also talks about A.I., working with Lance Oppenheim's doc-style direction, and his thoughts and intentions portraying Bill Conradt in the movie.

The events of A24’s Primetime may have taken place 20 years ago, but actor and filmmaker Alex Winter, who portrays Texas prosecutor Bill Conradt in the movie, believes this true crime thriller uses the past to speak volumes about the world today.

When star and producer Robert Pattinson approached documentarian Lance Oppenheim to direct Primetime, the cinema stars aligned for a propulsive and aesthetically thrilling narrative feature about the infamous legacy of NBC’s To Catch a Predator and its controversial host Chris Hansen (Pattinson). With a talented ensemble, a sweeping performance from Pattinson, and a singular vision from Oppenheim’s doc filmmaking career, Primetime offers up what Collider’s Taylor Gates calls “one of the most unusual and unique films of the year.”

In a recent interview with our own Steve Weintraub, Winter speaks in depth about his involvement with the film. Though Winter’s role on screen is minor, Conradt’s death became a defining moment in To Catch a Predator’s history, raising questions about ethics and the intersection of journalism, law enforcement, and entertainment. Winter opens up about his personal experience, why he agreed to the role, and his own unique perspective as a documentary filmmaker who continues to study how technology shapes society. He also highlights how Primetime uses the series “to speak to the moment” decades later, shares his thoughts on A.I., talks about reuniting with Keanu Reeves on Broadway, and more.

Alex Winter Warns the World Is Still Underestimating A.I.

"There's a lot of B.S. in that space at the moment."

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COLLIDER: Before we get into Primetime, I’ve got a bunch of other questions. You’ve documented several technological revolutions. What's happening right now that you think we're going to look back on and realize we completely underestimated?

ALEX WINTER: I still think we're underestimating A.I. I think it's hype, and there's a lot of kind of nonsense around it, but I think in general, we're underestimating how it's going to be used by certain companies and oligarchs and whatever as an excuse to diminish the workforce in various areas. So I think that the disruption from A.I. is kind of being miscalculated a little bit. If I do a doc in technology, that's what I would do it on, would be on the actual implications of the A.I. land rush, essentially.

Listen, I completely agree with you. Just the other day, Disney announced more layoffs, and I will wager any amount of money it has to do with AI.

WINTER: Yeah, and I think that there's a hasty rush into this space and the hope that suddenly it'll replace labor with magic, right? Like you just suddenly won't need humans because you have this thing called A.I., which no one can usually explain to you what that is, including the people who run the A.I. company.

So, I mean, look, A.I. is a broad term. I've dealt with this with my other documentaries. A lot of times these terms get bandied about — that happened in the crypto space — and they mean a lot of different things than what people are using them for. What people think of as A.I., we've been using it for decades, and we use it in the sound mix. We use it in all kinds of stuff. It can be like a calculator, right? A faster calculator.

But the way in which it's being discussed now, replacing huge chunks of industry, I think that should be talked about more significantly from a labor standpoint. What does that mean? What does it actually do? Will it actually replace these people? Or, what I think, which is that largely we're seeing consolidation and contraction in all these industries, and A.I. is kind of being used as an excuse to get rid of people. So, I think that's an area that's being miscalculated a little bit.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that this is an industry that needs regulation and monitoring, and letting these companies do it themselves is a huge disaster in the making.

WINTER: I mean, I've been saying this for almost 20 years in the tech space with the various docs I've been making. They've always been saying the same thing: You cannot let the tech companies police themselves. They won't. That's not their incentive. They're incentivized to make as much money as they can, as fast as they can, and disrupt as much as they can, and none of that works terribly well if you're on the labor workforce or human citizen of the planet’s side of the equation. So, I do think regulation and a lot more oversight.

And I would only say that whenever you hear anyone talking about an apocalypse in relationship to A.I., it means they either have no idea what they're talking about or they're falling prey to propaganda, because that whole idea of the doomsday scenario has been created by A.I. companies to keep regulation off of them and put it on their competitors. So, there's a lot of B.S. in that space at the moment.

I again completely agree. I've said, moderating certain events, I think we can all agree that A.I. should definitely be used to solve medical issues and to try to figure out climate change. Those are the two things I think we can all agree on, and everything else, go fuck yourself.

WINTER: Yeah, and even that, like you said yourself, it still needs oversight. It makes mistakes in the medical space. If you ask ChatGPT or your A.I. about certain climate issues, the answers will be very badly incorrect. So, it needs oversight. It's not just suddenly going to start fixing stuff.

Completely. Anyway, if we're going to keep wasting water, let’s use it for things that benefit the planet.

WINTER: Yeah, ideally. We don't need to build data centers to do nothing but make people rich that don't have our best interests at heart.

Or to make memes.

WINTER: That's for sure.

Alex Winter on Reuniting With Keanu Reeves on Broadway

The multihyphenate reveals what it's really like before they hit the stage.

keanu reeves alex winter waiting for godot

You were recently on Broadway with Keanu [Reeves], and I'm just curious, do you miss the excitement of doing that every day, or was there almost a big breath of relief when it was over, and everything went great?

WINTER: In all honesty, I think my body was ready to stop because eight shows a week for 16 weeks, plus all the rehearsal time. It's a very physical show the way we did it, the way Jamie Lloyd constructed it and conceived of this version of it. I mean, I was running around, literally up and down the sides of the set, eight shows a week, and so my body was ready for a break.

I have to say, I live for the theater. I grew up doing theater — Broadway, Off-Broadway — all the way through my youth and into high school and through high school. So, I was like a fish getting thrown back in the water again. I was really happy to do it. I was really sad when it ended. I'm working on putting another play together. We're doing a revival of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy, Off-Broadway, this spring and summer in New York, and I'm very, very excited to get back on the stage. So, I loved it.

I mean, it was absolutely a thrilling and rewarding experience, and we had an amazing cast. Keanu and I love working together, and to do something that wasn't Bill & Ted, had so much meat on the bone and so much depth, it was a kick in the pants. Those characters, even though they're still quite different from us, are more similar to us than Bill and Ted are. So, it was interesting to work with Keanu, adult to adult, whereas Bill and Ted are like perennial nine-year-olds.

I think I know the answer now, but what do you think would surprise people to learn about performing on Broadway? I'm learning from you right now it's the physicality and exhaustion that comes from the performance.

WINTER: I would say that, having come from theater, there were things I knew already. When I direct, I always build, when I can, rehearsal time into the shoot. So I would say the physicality and the prep are two things that people who are more accustomed to movie and TV acting, especially this current age of streaming, where usually there's no time for rehearsal, there's very little prep time, you get dropped in onto a set, cameras roll, boom. I really like to rehearse. I like as much rehearsal time as I can possibly get, and I like to prep.

On [Waiting for] Godot, we had the benefit of having almost four years before we went on stage when we knew we were doing it. So obviously we were doing other jobs around that, but I was working with my trainers, I was learning all my lines, I was getting in physical shape. That was like running a marathon.

That's the one thing I warned Keanu about, who is thankfully Keanu, right? He's one of the more physically agile movie stars in the business. So it's not like he's not in shape, but I just warned him, “However much endurance you think you need for this, you will need more. However much you can get your cardio and your aerobics going, you're going to need more of that.” So that's really, I think, the big shocker for people who go on stage who don't know, and oftentimes their bodies break down because they're just not used to it.

That's what I'm so curious about. When you are giving that much, and you're doing eight performances, two performances on a certain day, are you purposely doing cardio when you're on the same day? What are you doing to actually maintain, or does the performance itself count as your workout for the day?

WINTER: It’s a really funny thing that you mentioned that. I'm very aggro about prep, so I had this crazy regimen for about a year and a half leading up to when I went to New York for rehearsals of Pilates, Alexander training, cardio work, cycle training, circuit training, and aerobic work.

I got to New York, and I moved all that stuff to New York, and I had a Pilates trainer and a cardio, and a cycle, and a circuit, whatever, and on the first week of rehearsal, Jamie had a physical therapist come, and she asked us all what our regimens were, and I told her mine. She's like, “All that stuff you're doing, please stop doing that immediately.” She’s like, “You're now rehearsing. All of that is going to happen here. If you do everything you're doing here and you do that, you're never going to make it to opening night. You're just going to fry.” So, I stopped. I literally called everyone and was like, “All classes are canceled.”

The show itself and the rehearsal, I mean, honestly, doing the play, playing Vladimir, was like running a 5 or 10K, sometimes twice a day. So just two hours on stage, running around constantly under the heat of the lights was like running a 10K.

Yeah, but you also had built up over a year your endurance. The only thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that it goes away very quickly.

WINTER: It does! It does, man. I got home and I rested. I knew I needed to rest. I got off the show and I was very tired, and I rested for about five or six weeks. And when I got back on a cycle, I was completely out of shape again, like I'd not done anything. I was like, “I might as well have just cracked a six-pack of Miller Lite and just parked myself in front of the TV,” because it was just gone.

For all you youngins watching this interview, that's what happens when you get older. It sucks.

Alex Winter Is Already Working on His Next Two Films

After Adulthood's success, he's got his eyes on the director's chair again.

Alex Winter on stage with Steve Weintraub in a movie theater speaking at an Adulthood Q&A.

So you were last behind the camera with Adulthood. You did such a great job with that. What are you thinking about for directing next? Are you writing?

WINTER: Yeah, I'm writing. I have two features that I'm working on. I have kind of a big one, a period piece that's probably a slower burner that I'm working on, that's a film noir about Hollywood in 1950. That's a really interesting story from a book by a great writer named Megan Abbott.

And then I have a film that I just finished writing that I'm putting together, as well, that is a fugitive movie, somewhat loosely inspired by a movie called They Live by Night, films like They Live by Night, Last Samurai, things like that; films that are very cinematic and don't have a lot of dialogue but are very intense.

With what you did with Adulthood and with your resume, is it still difficult for you to find financing, or do you have people in your corner that you can call when you want to make something?

WINTER: I have a lot of people in my corner. I've been an independent filmmaker my whole life, since the ‘80s, since we made Freaked and I made Fever, and on from there. The docs have usually been independent, and then I go sell them to HBO or whoever. I've been producing my own work my whole career, and I know how to do it, so I generally just write my stuff, go after the money, go after the talent. I'm grateful I've been in the business long enough I know a lot of financiers, I know a lot of actors, and I just start with the folks that I want, and then we see how long it takes. Sometimes these things happen quite quickly, and sometimes they take forever.

Adulthood, very gratefully, came together pretty expediently for a movie with Josh [Gad] and my cast, and it was a lovely experience. I made the film on a budget. I made it exactly the way I wanted to, and I was really happy with it.

When you're writing these screenplays, how much are you thinking about the actors you want? Are you already calling people that you're friends with, saying, “Hey, I'm writing this, and I am thinking about you. Not sure if it's going to come together, but I want to let you know?” How does that work with you?

WINTER: I do. I mean, I have a constellation of actors I've always known quite well and/or worked with. You have to be a little careful though, because once you say that, they're expecting it, as I would, and you get to a point where it’s like, “Oh, it's actually changed radically as I got to the last two weeks of shooting, and a woman is now a man, and a man is now something else.” So, it's something I'm careful about.

But I do have teams of people that I like to work with, that I kind of always go back to. And also what I have that I love is a brain trust of other writer-directors and the like who I give my script to, and I start talking about conceptually, sometimes quite early on. Even composers. These are people that, once I'm going, I bring them on as quickly as I can, and get the music on well in prep, and start talking all that stuff through from the jump.

I definitely have to bring in Bill & Ted. What is the craziest place that someone has come up to you and quoted Bill & Ted to you or wanted to talk Bill & Ted to you?

WINTER: I mean, all over the world, Steve. I mean, everywhere I am, anywhere in the world. I have this joke with my kids that we get off a plane in Southeast Asia and Bill & Ted is playing in the airport. It's just guaranteed. So, it's so weird. I'm so used to it, I almost don't notice anymore.

One funny story about being recognized was that when I was shooting Freaked, I started sleeping in the makeup because I was co-directing, and it was taking so long — hours and hours and hours to get in, hours and hours and hours to get out — that I started sleeping in it. And one morning, I went down to the underground parking lot where my car was parked to drive to set, and half my head was this giant creature, right? Huge giant hump, ear pustules, the whole nine, and there was a group of businessmen down there in the underground parking lot, and they're walking towards me, and I'm walking towards them. I'm like, “This is so not going to end well,” right? They're going to kill me thinking I'm some kind of monster. And they get close to me, and their eyes go super wide. They get closer and closer and closer, and then they just point and go, “Bill & Ted!” And I was like, “What? That's it? I've got this giant creature on and that's all you care about?” So, that's been my whole life since they came out, every day.

Thank you for indulging my Bill & Ted question.

Alex Winter Calls 'To Catch a Predator' "Pure Exploitation for Ratings"

He explains why he wanted to play Bill Conradt in the film.

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Jumping into Primetime, talk a little bit about how you got involved in this. Was it something that you went after? Did Lance [Oppenheim] contact you?

WINTER: Yeah, Lance contacted me. I was well aware of him and his work. He's a documentary filmmaker; I'm a documentary filmmaker. I think that our films are very different, but they have a similarity in that I think we both come at the doc space from a narrative perspective. Every doc doesn't need to be this way. I love every kind of documentary, but I tend to make docs that feel narrative, where it's really a core cast of characters like you would have in a narrative film. That's your ensemble. You have the protagonist and an antagonist. You have a three-act structure, basically. It's how I build my docs, and I've always loved about Lance's docs that they feel like movies — Ren Faire’s such an epic story about these epic characters in this crazy environment. So I was a fan, and I knew that he would be very, very good at narrative. I just knew that he'd make a great narrative movie, so I had faith in him.

So, they contacted me and asked me if I was interested in reading for the role of Bill Conradt. Lance and I spoke about the role, and he knew about my own personal history with abuse. I've talked about it. I made a doc for HBO about it. It’s kind of what Showbiz Kids is about. So he knew I had a deep awareness of these issues at play that To Catch a Predator was dealing with, and he knew that I understood predators from personal experience and had an awareness and understanding of them that was probably more nuanced than your average person.

So, that was really interesting to him, and it was really interesting to me because it's not like a cathartic role, like you do all the work on yourself. I wouldn't use acting for that; I would use a therapist for that — and I would advise others to do the same. But I certainly do have a nuanced understanding of that world and of someone like Bill and the character that I was playing. So I was very interested in exploring that character, his environment, his workspace, who he was, and what the landscape of that experience was that led to his death, because it's a pretty heavy situation.

The thing I did not know about at all was the show itself. I'm an older person, and I kind of missed the whole reality TV boom. I just never watched it. I had never seen an episode of To Catch a Predator. I didn't know who Chris Hansen was. So, I read the script, and I just thought it was a brilliant exploration or interrogation of 2000s culture, period, all of it, just before the internet changed everything, like that precipice. And you know me, I made the Napster doc (Downloaded); I'm really interested in society and its evolution through that time period. It's been kind of an obsession of mine.

So, I was very fascinated by Lance's approach, by the character, and I'm really happy with the way the film turned out. Lance did an amazing job. I think that whole creative team and the other actors just did an incredible job with that film.

I completely agree. All the acting in the film is top-notch, and I really enjoyed Lance's aesthetic and the choices he made in telling the story. Did you have any concerns about playing this character, or is it one of these things where, “It's just a great role, and I'm jumping in?”

WINTER: I had no concerns. My feeling, in fact, was that there is so much provocative, politicized discourse around this space, especially in the post-Epstein era, and as someone who had experience in this area that was personal and significant, substantial, it always seemed kind of inaccurate to worse-than-inaccurate how this world was portrayed.

So to me, the opportunity to just treat this guy like a human being, it's like any acting job. The most interesting characters that one can play, like playing a three-dimensional character, whether it's a villain or a hero or whatever, a human being with flaws, that's gold for an actor. And for me to embody someone who was dealing with such intense demons and such intense flaws, to inhabit that and treat him like a human being, I thought, was a really compelling thing to do as an actor, especially given how I felt those types of people are perceived or misperceived.

It wasn't like a piece of activism for me, but I did feel in the back of my head that like, “Well, if I can add in some small way, a human, empathetic element to this incredibly blown-into-the-stratosphere, whacked out discourse that we're currently in, maybe that'll help a little bit.”

Do you think the film is ultimately asking whether what happened to Bill was journalism, law enforcement, entertainment, or some uncomfortable combination of all three?

WINTER: Oh, in my mind — and this is personal, I'm not an arbiter for the film or whatever their perspective is on the show or Chris or anything else, but personally, it's pure exploitation for ratings. It's not doing anyone a service. It's not treating, really, either side like three-dimensional human beings that are in need of help, and I just don't think that does any long-term good. So, that's my perspective on it.

Lance Oppenheim Used a Documentary Approach to Make 'Primetime'

"I just showed up and was 100% down with his process."

You and Lance both come from the documentary world. How did that affect the way you played scenes on set, and maybe the way Lance directed you in putting together those scenes?

WINTER: I absolutely loved the way he directed. And he's got the same team he’s used on everything — David [Bolen] and Daniel [Garber], his DP and his editor, his composer. Everybody is part of a creative consortium. The way Rob [Pattinson] plugged in Merritt [Wever] and Skyler [Gisondo], it was really this creative team.

But Lance, make no mistake, was leading the team, and he shot the movie, directed the movie in a way one would do a documentary, but I think the way he would do one of his documentaries, because he's a specific artist and we all make docs differently. We all direct differently. And I just loved his process. I don't think he did it for me, given that I'm a doc guy and he's a doc guy, but I think he appreciated that I just showed up and was 100% down with his process. I think that it's partly because I'm a doc filmmaker as well, and I very much understood what he was doing, and it made complete sense to me.

There was a nimbleness to it. We'd shoot a scene, and then I'd go away, go back to my trailer or whatever, and I would come back, and we'd shoot the whole scene again differently. That's very uncommon, and maybe some people wouldn't roll with that, but there was a methodology to it, and I so understood the methodology, and I was so down for the methodology that I could have done that all day long.

It was just very liberating, and it was helpful, I felt, for giving me the freedom, the space to just be Bill Conradt. I have a very small part in this film, but all the scenes are very heavy. So, I felt like Lance's process really allowed me the space to just get into my zone and live freely within that zone, so I was very grateful for it.

When I spoke to the rest of the cast, they all said to me exactly what you're saying, which is the scenes would be played completely differently. Robert would do something different in every take, and they really only knew the movie they had made when they finally saw it. They really didn't know how it was going to be edited together. What was it like for you? Because I'm sure you played certain scenes radically different, so what was it like finally seeing what Lance had constructed with your performance?

WINTER: Of course I know what you mean. I mean, it's a funny thing about directing and acting, because I do both and they are so markedly different. When I'm acting, I do not have a director hat on at all. Like, it is an extremely different zone. For me, it's really one of surrender. I just surrender my part, my performance, my takes. Which take I think may be good or bad, what scene works and doesn't, I surrender that to the filmmakers, right? That's theirs.

So, we shot scenes of mine that aren't in the film. There are versions of takes that aren't in the film. And I said to Daniel and to Lance — Daniel’s the editor — when I got down to Venice when we were at the Venice Film Festival, I was so happy with their choices. I would not have made them as a director. I would have made different choices. But what they cut, what they chose to keep, how they framed it, I thought was perfect.

I thought they did Bill Conradt a service. I felt that they really allowed him to be a human being, but not oversell. I don't think the film is overselling Conradt and saying, “Oh, you must fall on his side, and he's the hero and not the villain.” It's not didactic in that way. It's just presenting a person. I was very, very happy with the choices that they made and how they shaped it, and I can't imagine I would have done the same.

'Primetime' Uses the Past to Speak to the Chaos of the Present

"People are watching and going, 'Yes, I feel like our world is a carnival...'"

This film takes place 20 years ago. What do you think younger audiences might misunderstand about how powerful network television was in 2006?

WINTER: Steve, it's an interesting question, because I've been very gratified to see how popular this movie is with the younger demographic. My youngest son is 17, a total cinephile, and his friends were all there, like friends who didn't know who I was or that I was in it. They were all there opening night. I feel like Lance and the creative team and Rob's portrayal very much plug in to the current generation. It's plugging that era into their veins. The way it's shot, the cameras he’s using, the tenor of Rob's performance, I think it's really a modern movie for right now that the kids of right now just get it immediately. It doesn't feel dull and retro; it doesn't feel of another time.

So, I think what has succeeded, and I would credit Ajon [Singh], the screenwriter, as well, I think what they've succeeded in doing is representing in a very accessible way how bizarre the world was at that time, but how it relates to the bizarreness of the world we're in right now. I think that's why the movie is successful. I think people are watching and going, “Yes, I feel like our world is a carnival and this is a window.”

It's like a good noir. When we were young, Chinatown came out in the ‘70s, and that was about 30 years before or whatever, and that was an analogy for the present-day kind of Nixon-era craziness using the past. I think that's what Primetime is doing. I think Primetime is using 20 years ago to speak to the moment we're in, which is why I think Rob's performance is so genius and why I think it's connecting with people so much.

It's interesting to see. Listen, I've always been impressed with Robert Pattinson and his work, but it's so interesting that younger people today don't understand the stigma he was under after Twilight, and so the choices he made after Twilight have gotten him to where he is now, where I think people are now seeking out his work because of how fantastic an actor he is.

WINTER: Yeah. The thing I love about what he's doing is, given that he has the capital to do just tentpole after tentpole, or things that are maybe just more mainstream, he's a very curious and daring actor, and he wants to push himself and take risks. I could tell when I was on set, just watching him work, how interesting his way into this character was, and that's a really cool thing to do.

And he's a producer on the film, so he's creating that environment for Merritt, who's incredible in the film, and Skyler, and all these other performances for them to do their thing under that tent. And I think in this climate we're in now, where everyone's talking about the death of cinema, and it's all over, and it's the end of the world, blah, blah, blah — which, I mean, who knows? Maybe it is, but the fact is that I think Rob has faith in the movies, and it's nice to see a big star just have faith in good movies and say, “Look, if we build something cool, people are going to come and see it.” And I think this movie is a good example of that.

I firmly believe that cinema will survive. The issue is the types of movies that will survive. Because certain films that people used to go seek out in a movie theater, now everyone is more comfortable watching on a streamer or at home. It's just, what do people select to go pay 20 bucks in a movie theater to see?

WINTER: Yeah. And also, I think that the distributors and exhibitors need to believe in their own product. I think that if you look at people who are demanding theatrical windows, Primetime did really well in its opening weekend. It’s great that it didn't go right to just streaming.

An obvious example, I guess, brought up a lot, which is now, in the scheme of things, an older example, is Smile, which was slated to go directly to streaming. They put a flier on it and stuck it in theaters, and it was huge. Now, I think we're seeing that more and more in the genre space. I think that what Olivia Wilde did with The Invite, where she rejected a big streaming offer in favor of a theatrical window, was extremely successful. So I think that also takes a bit of courage. I think it takes a bit of determination to say, “You know what? People do like going to the movies. Let's test the waters in the theaters. Let's give these things a chance.”

100%. Also, always remember: John Wick was going straight to DVD, and Lionsgate picked it up and put it in theaters.

WINTER: I think you were, too, but I was at the Fantastic Fest premiere for that. Were you there?

This is a great story. Lionsgate had picked up the movie, and they showed it to, like, five of us in a screening room at Lionsgate shortly after getting it, and all I knew was that Keanu Reeves plays a hitman, because remember, it was so under the radar, that movie. I remember sitting in the screening room, and I was halfway through, and I thought to myself, “What the fuck am I watching? This is incredible.” The movie ended, and I told Lionsgate, “This is fucking awesome.” All of us who had seen it were just like, “Wow.” Then it went on to Fantastic Fest.

WINTER: But even at Fantastic Fest, I was at that premiere, and there was this kind of trepidation about, like you just said, “Who will the audience be? Will they turn out for it? Will they want to watch it on streaming?” And by the end of that screening, it was really evident that it played like gangbusters in front of a crowd. I mean, I find myself doing this all the time now with films, like really trying to explain to folks why we need to give it a shot in theaters.

Also, let me tell you, as someone involved in a website that covers movies, when a movie is in a movie theater, even if it's not crazy successful, if it's in a movie theater and people have heard about it, it will perform so much better when it goes to streaming. There’s just an awareness. People will hear about it when it's in a movie theater, and it's way more popular.

WINTER: A movie in a movie theater is a cultural event. A cultural event can have legs in a way that no other type of content can.

100%.

What Happens When Suffering Becomes Entertainment?

"Almost like the Roman Colosseum, it's like a thumbs up or thumbs down on a human life."

Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen in Primetime

Was there anything about the real history behind To Catch a Predator that you learned making the movie that genuinely surprised you or disturbed you?

WINTER: Well, I didn't really know anything about it, so I did research it. I didn't research it at the time because Bill Conradt didn't know anything about To Catch a Predator, so I didn't really want to get too bogged down in the show. My research of the show while I was performing, while I was shooting, was really limited to getting as much archival of his death as I could, like the actual footage around his house, in his house, all of that, which came from the show, obviously. I learned a little more about it after I did it by watching the Predators doc and things like that, and just getting kind of more of a sense of what it was, but I don't know if it surprised me.

And again, this is speaking personally and not for the movie or anything, but as a survivor, the world that you fight for and that you want to see is one in which everyone is treated with equal humanity, right? That's where things get solved. That's where there is forward movement. And I think that I worried a little bit about this notion that, almost like the Roman Colosseum, it's like a thumbs up or thumbs down on a human life. I just don't know how much good that's doing for anybody. So, I think that was sort of what I came away with from all of that. But again, that wasn't really even something I was focused on while I was making the film because I was really focused on this guy and his very specific predicament.

One of the fascinating things about Primetime is how it questions whether something can have a legitimate public interest or purpose while also becoming an entertainment. Was that contradiction something that you guys talked about while making the film?

WINTER: I didn't talk about it. I'm sure Lance and his team talked about it. It was evident that the script is interrogating that very question. I think that is the kind of moral pull on everybody in the film, on Merritt’s character, Skyler's, Phoebe [Bridgers]’. Obviously, Rob is the fulcrum of that, and to a degree, Bokeem Woodbine’s, as well.

The reason that I think the film is doing so well is I think that, on a broader level, that speaks to our current dilemma, which is we live in a world now where everything is meta, everything is a meme, everything becomes info and disinfo. How do you do activism? How do you vote? How do you be a good citizen? How do you handle life in this dizzying current climate, when you often don't even know… Like what Rob says to Skyler's character in the movie, “Your definition of bad and mine could not be more different.” I think that really speaks to the conundrum of our times, where two seemingly like-minded people can suddenly realize they're miles apart on things. I think that's the carnival ride that everybody is on today. I think that's why the film is connecting with people.

I'm grateful that for me, my little bitty part of this movie is really just saying, at the center of all this craziness, at the eye of this hurricane, there are people, just human beings, who are suffering and trying to figure themselves out, and that's interesting to me.

100%. You've made a number of documentaries. Is there anything cooking in the back of your brain? Is there something that you really want to tackle, or are you currently working on something without talking about it?

WINTER: I'm currently working on something without talking about it. We'll see if I make it. It's got a really good team. It's a really interesting, topical thing. I am obviously interested in A.I. and Gen A.I., and kind of the implications there, everything from the human trafficking side to the economic side, to all of it. So there's a lot of stuff in that space that I think is worth talking about that I don't think is getting talked about. But I'm very focused on getting my narratives. I'm very interested in the narrative space, and I'm kind of most focused in that space at the moment.

Primetime is in theaters now.