Connie Nikas

"I think something very important is happening and it's deeply connected to my purpose."

- Connie Nikas

Constantine "Connie" Nikas is the protagonist villain of 2017 American crime thriller film directed by the Safdie Brothers, ''Good Time. ''He is a bank robber who involves his mentally challenged brother, Nick in his crimes.

He was portrayed by Robert Pattinson on his first villanous role, and would later portray Ephraim Winslow in The Lighthouse and The Dauphin in The King.

Nick's arrest
The film starts with Connie forcibly taking out his brother, Nick from therapy. Connie makes Nick help him robbing a bank, they succesfully leave the place with $65,000, but dye pack explodes in the escape vehicle causing the driver to crash, forcing them to flee on foot, they wash out the dye in a Domino's pizza's bathroom were Connie hides the money, later they're stopped by the police when walking down the street, Nick panics and runs away, the police chase them, Connie escapes but Nick crashes against a glass door leaving him unconscious on the floor as the police arrests him.

Connie retrireves the money and attepmts to secure a bail bond, but since some of the bills were damaged by the dye pack, Connie is in need of $10,000 more, he convinces his girlfriend Corey to pay it with her mother's credit card, but they learn too late she has cancelled it, since she distrusts Connie.

Hospital Escape
Connie learns that Nick has been hospitalized after a fight with an inmate, he visits the hospital and when the police officer guarding Nick's room gets distracted, Connie takes him out, unconscious and bandaged on a wheelchair, he manages to leave the hospital and boards the hospital's bus for patients, where he meets an elder woman and his crippled husband, Connie convinces her to let them stay on her house until their "mother" comes out from work and comes pick them up, there, Connie dyes his hair blonde and meets Crystal, the woman's 16-year-old granddaughter, while they're watching the news, photos of Connie appear and to distract Crystal, Connie kisses her, he hears screaming coming from the room where "Nick" was sleeping, Connie runs to the room and realizes the man he broke out from the hospital isn't Nick, he's a man on parole called Ray, he shuts him up and convinces Crystal to drive them back to the hospital to get the real Nick, but the police is already guarding the hospital after noticing Ray has gone missing.

Ray's Story
They stop outside a White Castle and Ray tells Connie his story of how he was released on parole and got involved with some drug-dealer friends, they made some money selling acid they kept inside a Sprite bottle that is worth thousands of dollars, however when police finds out and chase them, they hide the money and the acid in an atraction at the Adventureland Amusement Park, they split and Ray, who was already high, escapes on a taxi, argues with the taxi driver, things escalate, the driver finds out Ray's escaping from police and he threatens with taking him to the police and speeds up, Ray then decides to jump out the speeding car, he hit his face against the concrete and was left unconscious and disfugured, the state in how Connie found him. Connie who has been listening decides to go to Adventureland and retrieve the money and the acid.

Adventurers
Crystal drives them to Adventureland and Connie and Ray sneak in, they look for the money inside an atraction but are discovered by the security guard who has already called the cops, Ray and Connie attack him and knock him out, Connie puts on his uniform and Ray, who has found the acid, makes the guard drink it so when the police finds him, think he's a drug addict. Connie orders Ray to hide and Connie poses as the security guard to the police, who arrest the real security guard, who wakes up frenetic and speaking gibberish, the police also finds Crystal, and Connie pretends not to know her and she's also arrested, Ray is unable to find the money and Connie is unable to find his brother's hospital room, so he decides to go to the guard's department on his car.

Connie
Upon arriving to the department, a big blind dog recieves them and calms down after smelling his owner's clother on Connie, they spend their time there until morning, Ray gets drunk, Connie asks him how much he can get for the acid as soon as possible, they argue and Connie calls Ray a leech on society, finally Ray calls Caliph a drug dealer friend of his. When Caliph arrives, Connie demands $15,000, Caliph pretends to reluctantly agree but instead he gestures Ray he'll go get a gun instead to get rid of Connie. Connie knowing something's up, leaves the apartment with the acid, Ray tries to stop him but is attacked by the dog, allowing Connie to flee, however, upon leaving the building, he is surprised by the police, who eventually found out his whereabouts, he tries to outrun them but is tackled by the officers, Ray who freed himself from the dog and has been watching from the balcony, watches the Sprite bottle fall out of Connie's bag, he calls Caliph informing him of the acid's location and then attempts to escape through the window, before losing balance and falling to his death, Connie witnesses this as he's being taken into custody and taken away in a police car.

In the epilogue, it is revealed Connie took responsability for his actions to free Nick, who now joins a therapy class and begins to socialize with people through group activities.

Trivia

 * After a while,Pattinson's hair started falling out in chunks, due to the many times they bleached it. After dyeing it black first (to make him look more like Benny Safdie who plays his brother), they peroxided it to blonde and had to bleach it back and forth several times until they got all the scenes and the required color. They shot scenes in the bathroom where he actually applies the hair dye in front of the mirror, but the scene didn't make it to the final film because it slowed down the pace of the movie. When shooting wrapped, he shaved it all off, which led to the mugshot photo of him on TV, which was taken a day after filming finished.
 * During pre-production, to try out if the make-up and clothes looked realistic, Pattinson went to shops around New York and interacted with people on the streets. He also spent much time as himself with people from Queens to get the accent right and hung out with recently released prisoners. He would let some read the script out loud, so he could record it on his phone and listen to it when he went to sleep.
 * The role of Connie Nikas was written specifically for Robert Pattinson who had contacted the Safdie Brothers after he randomly discovered the poster of Heaven Knows What, another movie by the Safdie Brothers.  He was so intrigued by the energy of the photograph, that he wrote an email to the brothers without knowing them, saying he wanted to work with them. After they met with Pattinson a few weeks later, liking him and being inspired by his enthusiastic energy, Josh Safdie started to write the script.
 * The scene where Connie enters the hospital was shot in an active Emergency Room with real patients.
 * Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie worked in-character at a car wash in Queens for a camera test and as part of the preparation for their brother relationship. Pattinson would go as Connie to show Nick how to function and be a part of normal society by drying the cars. Nick would get distracted from work and did things like pulling off other people's windscreen wipers. Connie would get frustrated and angry at Nick for not being able to do a normal job. Pattinson got the experience of having a disabled brother and how difficult it is in trying to include Nick in conversations and interactions in daily life.
 * The brothers Connie and Nick Nikas are children of Greek immigrants. The backstory is that they lived with their grandmother because their father had died, and their mother is estranged and has issues with substance abuse. Connie grew up in this hostile, negative environment, he was angy, quite violent and takes his anger out on his disabled brother. They had an uncle who had a car dealership where Connie worked. There he scanned VIN numbers, the digital codes, and got car keys made. Then Connie would sell someone a car and steal the car from their garage in the middle of the night. He got away with it for a while, until the uncle found out that it was his nephew Connie who he then had to pull away from the grandmother because he was fighting with his brother Nick all the time. They ended up splitting up, Connie was forced to leave the house, goes down a bad road and ends up in prison. In prison, he had a kind of enlightenment, it may have come from reading the bible... he suddenly fancies himself as this kind of provider, that he has a mission, a purpose in life to reconnect with his brother. He ends up writing letters to his brother and turns Nick against the grandmother in an attempt to create a bond with him. When Connie is let out of prison, his plan is to get his brother out of the city, which he thinks is a toxic environment, and away from the grandmother and into the woods, to Virginia. But he has no relation with the woods and it is a thoughtless idea, originated from watching too many bad movies.
 * Robert Pattinson's performance in this film is reportedly what convinced Matt Reeves to cast him in the title role in The Batman (2021).
 * According to Josh Safdie, Connie was, at least partially, inspired by the late cult leader Charles Manson.
 * An early draft of the character was written in the early drafts of Uncut Gems' script, and it was meant to be portrayed by Benny Safdie, who ended up playing Connie's brother.
 * Robert Pattinson stayed in character off-screen to make sure nobody recognized him, and it paid off and Pattinson was never recognized and even asked if he was Bradley Cooper's security guard, since there where rumours a movie with Bradley Cooper was being shot in Queens.
 * The Safdie Brothers have talked about Connie Nikas and Howard Ratner as being very similar, with the difference that Howard has more power than Connie.