Up-and-coming star Rob Pattinson is certainly no slouch in the looks department, but Twilight fans weren't impressed when he was cast as the indescribably beautiful Edward Cullen. "He looks like a bum," said one fan, Pattinson recalled at a recent Twilight press conference.
In the movie images and trailers released thus far, he's been cleaned up a bit and covered with pale makeup and suitable threads. Twilight fans have been won over somewhat. The "boos" have turned to squeals of excitement at Pattinson's recent appearances. One Hot Topic signing session even turned into full-on chaos, as we reported last week. However, fans are holding out on full, unabashed approval until they've seen the movie.
Watching the young actor portray the powerful, attractive Edward courting Bella on screen, it's easy to forget all the hoopla that once existed around the news of his casting. His onscreen American accent is so convincing that meeting the Englishman in person, his true voice came as a shock.
Q: What was the quote Kristen [Stewart] was trying to recall that you said about comparing the screeching girls to the "Gates of Hell"?
Pattinson: At Comic-Con. I think it's a great noise if you're doing a movie where you are entering Hell. Just get 7,000 girls screaming. It sounds exactly how you imagine the sound should be.
Q: What was the appeal of acting to you in the very beginning?
Pattinson: I don't know what it was in the beginning. My first job [Vanity Fair], I was playing Reese Witherspoon's son. I hadn't done any acting in school and wasn't at a drama school or anything. You turn up on set and you're doing a film with Reese Witherspoon and you have a trailer and stuff. I just thought it was the most ridiculous thing. Wow, I should be an actor. How is this happening?
Q: Stephenie [Meyer] said you two had a bit of a disagreement about your character.
Pattinson: I think it was to do with why he treats Carlisle as a father when [Edward's] a 108 year-old guy and [Carlise's] not his father. And she said that he treats him as a father because he deserves to be treated as a father. He wanted Edward to be his son and he believes that Carlisle is such a good person that he will ignore his age and treat him as a father. Initially, I thought that was absolutely ridiculous and then I thought, "That's actually a really bizarre character trait," so I started to agree with it by the end.
Q: Having worked on a few Harry Potter movies, how does the fandom compare to Twilight?
Pattinson: It's different. By the time I was doing Harry Potter, there had already been three made, so it was a kind of slick machine by the time I got into it. With Twilight, people didn't realize the extent of what it was [at first]. It kept growing and growing. We kept having to reformulate how to make it as it got bigger. You start out thinking you're making this, basically, independent movie. It's with a medium-sized studio. We definitely weren't making it as a blockbuster. There aren't big names in it. Luckily, [the hype] didn't happen until the end of shooting.
It's funny, because we were thinking "How do you set this thing up for a franchise?" They don't change. He doesn't age. And also because it's a supernatural thing, you have to lay down the ground rules. There was tons and tons of thought that had to be put into it. A lot of it was just off the cuff.
Q: How familiar were you with either series of books?
Pattinson: I wasn't familiar with either. I'd obviously heard about Harry Potter because everybody's heard of Harry Potter. But I'd only read the one which I was in because I knew I was going to do the audition. With Twilight, I was living in England and I just hadn't heard of it.
Q: Is this your first brush with an American accent?
Pattinson: Yes, it is.
Q: How hard was it?
Pattinson: To be honest, not that hard. I didn't have a dialect coach or anything. I had a very specific voice with which to do it. There were certain elements of other different characters which I wanted to put into it. I grew up watching American movies and all my favorite actors are American, so it was just sort of osmosis.
Q: Baseball was also a new thing for you.
Pattinson: Yeah, I'm completely malcoordinated. I'm terrible at all sports and I don't see the point in them. I had a baseball coach. Catherine was so determined to make me look like a professional baseball player. I could not take it seriously. They said, "You have to have a ready position" and so, for the rest of the shoot, when there was blocking or anything I'd say, "I'll do it in my ready position," no matter what the scene was.
Q: How much of the stunt work in the film did you do?
Pattinson: Quite a bit of it. I did quite a few of them, but I had a really good stunt double. It's like, I can do something, get injured, and look crap doing it or he can do it, and make it look really good, and no one notices the difference. (Laughs) I did a bunch of it, but I managed to get injured whenever I did even the simplest of stunts. I tried to pick up Kristen and I almost ripped my hamstring. It's not even a stunt. She weighs like 50 pounds.
Q: Have you read the next book, and is there a moment you are looking forward to for your character?
Pattinson: Definitely the second one. It's my favorite book. I think you can really change the character at the end. He's distraught and every ounce of confidence he has in the first one is gone by the end of the second one. His reappearance at the end, when he's essentially committing suicide, I think you can really change his image. There's nothing similar from the rest of the books. I think we can really shock the fans and create something quite special with it. I think, if they let me.
Q: Would you want to be immortal?
Pattinson: No way.
Q: Do you want to get old?
Pattinson: I just want to get to 32. That's the age I'm looking forward to.