Robert Pattinson was on The Daily Show last night promoting David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, and while I generally adore Jon Stewart, I got through about three minutes of him eating ice cream and waiting for him to ask a goddamned question before I clicked onto something else. C’est la vie say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell. Anyway, hopefully it’ll be a better interview in a few months when Pattinson goes back to promote Queen of the Desert, a movie in which he’ll be starring, from director Werner Herzog.

Robert Pattinson has joined the cast of Werner Herzog’s indie “Queen of the Desert,” which will star Naomi Watts as English writer Gertrude Bell.

Pic will chronicle Bell’s life as a writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer and political attache for the British Empire. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford at the turn of the 20th century, she traveled through the Middle East, defining the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Pattinson is attached to play T.E. Lawrence, a British Army officer whose writing earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, on whom David Lean’s classic 1962 epic is based. Lawrence was a good friend to Bell over the years, as the duo helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in Jordan and Iraq.

Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan (Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn”) are producing the pic, which is aiming to start production in late fall.

Werner Herzog and I happen to be dear friends, so I was able to reach him for comment:

“Vhen I cast mein film, I pick za Row-bert Pattinson, because, just as I look eento za eyes uff za greezzly bear, oont see nuzzink but za cold eendeeference uff nature, so eet must be vhen Row-bert Pattinson stares eento za cold eendeeferent blankness uff za Kristen Schtewart. She bite her lip, oont ‘e see nuzzink. Zee abyss. Blackness. Za reptilian animal stupidity uff za common chicken. Eez beautiful. Eet eez vhen I sink ziss, zat I know he must understand za true poetry. Za poet must never look away.”

[banner pic via GQ, DailyShow]