Twilight - Interview With Robert Pattinson

November 14, 2008 by tcgames

Robert Pattinson, the English actor who takes on the role of Edward the vampire in Twilight, told reporters he approached the part cautiously. The actor–previously known as the ill-fated Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire–has the unenviable job of playing a century-old vampire who is described in Stephenie Meyer’s original novel as the perfect man.

But Pattinson found a way to spark romance with Bella, the character played by co-star Kristen Stewart. Pattinson spoke in a group interview last weekend in Beverly Hills, Calif., to promote the movie, which opens Nov. 21. Following is an edited version of that interview.

Are you fully prepared for the fan reaction?

Pattinson: My brain doesn’t really accept it, so it’s fine. I can be put anywhere, and … it just goes completely over my head. I just don’t want to get stabbed or something. They’re literally, my representation, just saying, “Have you got any fear, like, literally?” … I should say, like, “I just don’t want to get shot or stabbed, and I don’t want someone to have a needle and then I get AIDS afterwards.” That’s my only legitimate, … real fears. …

The Entertainment Weekly cover story on Twilight portrays you as obsessive about playing the role of Edward, of having a lot of angst. It doesn’t seem like you now, but was that true?

Pattinson: Yeah. I didn’t want to do a teen stupid movie. I’d specifically not done anything which anyone would see since Harry Potter, because I wanted to teach myself how to act. I didn’t want to be an idiot. And this came kind of randomly, and I didn’t really know what it was when it first started. I was going to wait for another year. I wanted to do, like, two or three more little things and then do something [bigger]. But this kind of happened, and I was like, “Oh, OK.” And I’d done another movie where I’d got really intense about it before, and I felt kind of satisfied after. I was much more satisfied than I have from other movies. I don’t know how it turned out or what the result of getting intense about something is, but you definitely feel more satisfied. And I wanted to take that into Twilight and also try and break down the assumption that, if a movie is being made from a book which is selling a lot of copies–which every single book that sells a lot of copies now is made into a movie immediately–they’re actually all not very good and everybody knows, even like 6-year-olds know, that it’s just to make money. I didn’t want to be involved in that. And I thought [director] Catherine [Hardwicke] and Kristen would be supportive of that.

But they’ve also got reputations, whereas I don’t have a reputation at all. So I wanted to make sure by the time people got to Portland, [Oregon, where the film shot,] I knew everything about everything. … I didn’t talk to anybody about anything other than the part for about a month and a half of the shoot. And I think it kind of galvanized people. I think most people thought, you read the book, it’s an easy read. It’s a nice book. So I think most people are going in thinking like, yeah, it’s a happy film. And then, like, holding it and saying, “No!” It’s like, “This is gonna win Oscars!” [laughs] …

Did Stephenie share any of Midnight Sun, the story as told from Edward’s point of view? Did you discuss character? [Midnight Sun was going to be the fifth volume in Meyer's Twilight series, but was put on hold indefinitely.]

Pattinson: Yeah, I mean, she gave it to me about two thirds into shooting. I didn’t even know it existed. I knew the first chapter had existed, and I’d based a lot of my angstyness in the character from that first chapter, which is on the Internet. And because it’s saying how little control he has. I mean, in the book, it seems where, when he says I’m a monster, and I’m going to kill you, and she says, “I’m not afraid,” you kind of know the whole time in the book, he’s never going to do anything bad. But then you read that first chapter in Midnight Sun where the full extent of how much he wanted to kill her and how he’s considering killing the entire school just so he can kill her becomes evident. I wanted that element of him to be very prominent, and I wanted Bella to be saying, “I’m not scared. You won’t do anything to me.” Not so certainly as saying, like, “You won’t do anything to me, will you?” I mean, I kind of wanted something like that. I think it makes it sexier as well, if there was a very real chance of him just flipping out and killing her. …

What is the secret of the chemistry you and Kristen developed and shared?

Pattinson: I think it was just doing the opposite of what the actual story is. I mean, thinking about it in the opposite way, like looking to her. Right from the beginning, in the audition, we did the meadow scene in the audition, which isn’t in the meadow in the film. But it’s supposed to be, I guess, about him trying to intimidate her, and her looking at him with just nothing but love and just like adoration and awe, as if this god has just come down to meet her. But … I played it as the god is, like, broken at this normal girl’s feet. And … even … the position which we’re in at the end, … I was like literally kneeling at her feet, and I don’t know what happened. I can’t really remember what happens in the movie, in the audition anyway. And she was doing this, like, mothering thing and [he's] … looking to the normal girl for support. And I think that really works. I mean, she’s very strong. She’s not like a damsel-type girl. … They just like cast the opposite people: … I’m like the wreck, and she’s really strong, and like it’s supposed to be the other way around. So I think that’s why it kind of worked. …

Peter Facinelli, who plays vampire patriarch Carlisle Cullen, says you sucked at baseball and that he had to help you.

Pattinson: I’m asked this in every single [interview]. He must be going to every single meeting and saying that. Yeah, no, I’m terrible at baseball. And Catherine was so intense about … wanting me to look like a pro baseball player, and I just didn’t care at all. … I wanted to be doing, like, proper rehearsals, and she was like, “No, you have to look like a baseball player.” So I was like in a f–king T-shirt doing a ready position, and then Catherine’s like, “OK, let me see it! Let me see it!” I was like, “Listen, I’ll do it on the day, all right? I’ll do it. I can do a ready position. I can f–king squat.” And then I finally did it. … So for the rest of the shoot, whenever she had a question about blocking or whatever, I’d just be like, “I think I should do this in my ready position. Like, I think it’s really, really necessary.” [laughs] …

What was up with proposing marriage to Kristen?

Pattinson: I can’t even remember when this happened. I mean, Kristen’s like, “Yeah, you did.” I was like, “Oh.” I think somebody else sent me a text message the other week saying, “We still on for our marriage?” Like, I think it was yesterday I was supposed to get married to somebody else.

Is this a regular thing with you?

Pattinson: I guess it must be.

Source: Scifi Wire

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