Robert Pattinson's 'Twilight' brings the dawn of a deadly new dreamboat

NY Daily News has a bit about Robert. You can find the whole thing here but it's pretty much a repeat of what we know and some wrong info. I am posting the parts that are new :-))



The role wasn't his first attempt at fang-bearing - "I remember when [HBO's] 'True Blood' was first starting out. I auditioned for it and didn't get it."

Pattinson wasn't fazed once he was cast in "Twilight" (which opens Friday). He easily mastered an American accent without a dialect coach. "Every actor I like is American - I mean, I always say I've stolen things from James Dean's voice, the way he slurs his words, just for chatting up girls and stuff."

But it's Hugh Grant, not Dean, he most frequently calls to mind. So much about the two upper-class Brits is the same: wide-set eyes, schoolboy baffledness, a bumble-and-mumble manner - even an equally floppy thatch of hair, which Pattinson said he hasn't washed for six weeks.

He has Grant's aw-shucks modesty, too. "I still don't understand why people love the character to this obsessive degree, the chivalrousness and opening doors and stuff. Don't understand why a teenage girl would care."

Reaching this level of fame is a strange experience for Pattinson. He started as model in London, working for Nicole Farhi, among others. "I was doing it at 12, the youngest person in my agency out of the girls or boys. I was so ridiculously skinny I looked like a girl, but that was the period where they loved androgynous-looking people."

Then he joined a drama club simply because all the pretty girls went there. He and best friend Tom Sturridge - whose father, Charles, is a well-known British director - were soon auditioning together, often for the same part. "We go up against each other every single time, even though we look completely different."

Both Tom and Robert were cast in the Reese Witherspoon remake of "Vanity Fair," but Pattinson's part didn't make the final cut.

"But that's why I got 'Harry Potter' - the casting director felt guilty," he laughs. You'll remember Pattinson as the doomed Cedric Diggory. "I wouldn't mind doing more 'Harry Potter' because you get paid in pounds."

From there, he got the equally doom-laden role of Edward. And now, only teen dream Zac Efron, the fleet-footed icon of "High School Musical," can rival Pattinson's star trajectory.

He and Efron met behind the scenes at MTV's Video Music Awards, and the world didn't implode when 'tween matter and anti-matter came together. "He's such an iconic face, the embodiment of the modern face of celebrity," Pattinson muses about Efron. "But he was the opposite of how I thought he'd be - completely upfront and honest. You'd think people will be really media-trained and he's really not."

But Efron can relate to that distinctive brand of fame both will experience - hormonally powered devotion. "The fans are very judgmental - they have very specific ideas of how you should live your life," says Pattinson. "Who would have thought teenage girls would be the most moralistic?"

He recalls how his sleepy-eyed expression has been mistaken for drug-taking. "Yeah, right, I'm going to my Disney interview smoking crack," Pattinson says sarcastically.

Although Efron has juggled singing and acting with aplomb, life-long musician Pattinson (who even croons one of the anthems on "Twilight's" soundtrack) shrugs off the suggestion he could record an album now. "I wouldn't do it at the same time as acting. I mean, the whole thing I find quite embarrassing. I don't like the idea of saying, 'You're in the public eye, now is the time to release an album because people will buy it.' I don't care if people buy it or not."

He's sanguine about success.

"My attitude from the beginning has been, 'If you start failing, do not start going on reality TV shows.'"

Well, except maybe "America's Next Top Model." Pattinson breaks into a wide, beaming grin when he mentions an upcoming engagement. "I'm doing 'Tyra' in a few weeks and I'm really excited about it. I love that show. It's my favorite TV show."

The "Model" judging panel, no doubt, would tell him to vamp it up.