Phoebe Bridgers Drops Haunting ‘On Video’ From Soundtrack to Robert Pattinson ‘Primetime’ Film
The singer also makes her acting debut in director Lance Oppenheim's thriller about To Catch a Predator's Chris Hansen.
Phoebe Bridgers on the set of the movie "Primetime."
Phoebe Bridgers surprise dropped the roiling new song “On Video” on Friday morning (Sept. 25), her contribution to the soundtrack for director Lance Oppenheim’s anticipated psychological crime thriller about To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen. The murky, dense rock song that will play over the end credits of Oppenheim’s narrative film debut — he co-directed Nathan Fielder’s buzzy Elizabeth Holmes doc You Can See Everything — alongside an original score from the director’s frequent collaborator Ari Balouzian.
The song written specifically for the film spins up over gently strummed guitars as Bridgers whisper sings, “Face painted white With blue butterflies/ Wasting wishes on the world/ You could go home/ But you would be alone,” before picking up intensity as it divebombs into the grungy, distorted guitars chorus.
“On video, on video/ I saw you making angels in the snow,” she sings urgently amid the noisy swirl.
Bridgers will make her acting debut in the A24 movie, which is based on a 2007 Esquire article titled “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” and stars Robert Pattinson as Hansen, a Dateline NBC correspondent who was behind the shows pedophile-sting segment that was spun off into its own series. The singer plays Del Harvey, a young decoy who played both boys and girls on the show and how is based on the real person of the same name who was a volunteer for the internet watchdog group Perverted Justice.
The movie also stars Merritt Weaver (The Gilded Age) as Hansen’s Dateline NBC producer Andie Bender, Skyler Gisondo (The Righteous Gemstones) as a young actor hired for the show’s sting operations, Dan Plumb, as well as Matthew Maher (Our Flag Means Death), Bokeem Woodbine (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and Alex Winter (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure).
At a press conference for Primetime at the Venice International Film Festival earlier this month, Bridgers talked about her friendship with Oppenheim — who directed the video for her recent single “Lost Boys” — and her fear of taking on a role in the movie. “It was certainly super intimidating and when Lance asked me, I was like, ‘No way,’” Bridgers said about the project’s difficult subject. “But it turns out, working with incredible people actually makes it way easier. I thought I was going to wither with all of these guys. Instead, it was just like so fun and free.”
Listen to Bridgers’ “On Video” below.
