Time Magazine Q&A with Robert Pattinson

Seem­ingly overnight, Robert Pat­tin­son went from play­ing Voldemort’s road­kill in Harry Pot­ter and the Gob­let of Fire to being the immor­tal half of one of the hottest screen cou­ples of all time. He spoke with TIME about how he landed the role of Twilight’s Byronic vam­pire Edward Cullen, what it’s like to be a gen­er­a­tional crush and how to walk unmo­lested along the streets of Vancouver.

TIME: You took on an edgy vam­pire movie and it’s become this. Did you know what you were sign­ing up for?

Robert Pat­tin­son: I had no idea it was going to be like this. I really had no idea until… I guess I still don’t. The time that it hit me really was when we were shoot­ing in Italy and the emo­tional reac­tion — it wasn’t just scream­ing. It was like peo­ple were so intently lis­ten­ing and watch­ing. After every take there was polite applause. And it wasn’t hys­te­ria. It was lit­er­ally devo­tion to the char­ac­ters. It was amaz­ing. I haven’t felt that in any other situation.

Cast­ing Edward was cru­cial to the fran­chise. What did Cather­ine Hard­wicke see in you?

I don’t know. I was a lit­tle intim­i­dated by Kris­ten in my audi­tion. So I played it like a guy who is beat­ing him­self up a lot about every­thing. I don’t think any­one else did it like that. I think they con­cen­trated on the con­fi­dence aspect. If you read the book, you know he’s the per­fect man, ideal man. If you’re a guy you have cer­tain ideals about what you think is attrac­tive. And that’s why I didn’t go into it for ages, because I thought I’d end up being silly in the audi­tion. I’d be pos­ing. I guess I tried to ignore every aspect of the con­fi­dent hero of the story. And I played the extreme oppo­site. It didn’t end up being that in the film.

If they’d cast the other guy for Edward, would the fran­chise have been as suc­cess­ful as it is today?

I hon­estly don’t know. No mat­ter how famous I get as an indi­vid­ual, it’s always evened — or even sur­passed — by the fame of Edward Cullen. That’s got to mean some­thing. I don’t mind that. That’s just the way it is.

Why are Amer­ica and the world so men­tal about it?

I was just in Japan, but when I first went there in Feb­ru­ary, the peo­ple who went to the fan events there were mainly peo­ple who went to Amer­i­can schools. This time it was entirely Japan­ese the audi­ence. No one could really speak Eng­lish, but they reacted in the same way as they have around the world. Even the dis­trib­u­tor was say­ing, Japan­ese audi­ences don’t react like this. And they were stunned by the whole thing.

There must be this weird, pri­mal thing in peo­ple that they react to. There are so many love sto­ries that come out. So many vam­pire sto­ries that come out. Even the load of vam­pire sto­ries com­ing out now have the exact same story line. This doesn’t have the same reac­tion. I think it’s all about being part of a club. Peo­ple used to say it was a guilty plea­sure. But I don’t even think it is that any­more. I think peo­ple gen­uinely appre­ci­ate that they are part of something.

How can it con­tinue at this level?

I have no idea. It kind of feeds on itself by the looks of things. It seems to have got from the begin­ning of this year to now. I was just talk­ing to the head of the stu­dio who said they are only 25 per­cent through the cam­paign for New Moon. And the track­ing on the movie is ridicu­lous. Even ran­dom celebri­ties are asked, What do you think of Twi­light? It’s insane. I remem­ber say­ing at Comic-con last year that I didn’t know where it could go from there. I didn’t know how much big­ger it could get. I guess this time they are get­ting guys to watch it. Guys were the only other place left to go

They shoot the movies very quickly for a lot of rea­sons — momen­tum for one, but also because vam­pires don’t age. Does that throw pres­sure on you to, well, look exactly the same?

I don’t really think about that. I think I def­i­nitely look older in this one. But then I look younger in the third one, which is just weird.

A whole gen­er­a­tion will remem­ber you as Edward. You’re a gen­er­a­tional crush. Is that hard to live up to or dif­fi­cult to accept?

There’s no liv­ing up to it. I think the major fear is just fight­ing too hard against it. Most peo­ple who have a down­fall from a like sit­u­a­tion is when they do try to fight, and fight and fight: I’m not this teeny bop­per per­son, blah, blah, blah. Even if a lot of peo­ple see me and the fran­chise as like that, I never have, at any point. But I don’t feel the need to fight against it. I’ve never tried to pan­der to any kind of audi­ence. I’ve tried to make the films as intel­li­gent and uncheesy as you could. And I’ve tried to make them the best they can be. I’ve never thought about it any other way. So I hope that pays off.

A lot of celebs use dis­guises to escape their bub­ble. What’s been your worst?

In Van­cou­ver, shoot­ing New Moon, I tried some­thing. They have this thought that no one there wears hoods except for prob­lem peo­ple. It’s the only city in the world where hoods are not fash­ion­able. It’s like if you’re wear­ing a hood you’re going to mug peo­ple. So it’s a bor­ing dis­guise, but it worked when I wore a hood. And then I’d sort of spit on the ground a lit­tle bit and do a lit­tle bit of shak­ing around as you’re walk­ing. Every­one moved around to the other side of the street.

Can you go out of the bubble?

You can go out. The only dif­fi­culty is when there are peo­ple wait­ing out­side the exits where you are going. You will get fol­lowed. It’s the fol­low­ing that’s the worst part. If it’s just get­ting a photo taken out­side the exit, that would be OK. But it’s the fol­low­ing that takes away your freedom.

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