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.

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