ROBsessed™ - Addicted to Robert Pattinson

Barbara (Babs) translated the Vanity Fair (Italy) for us. Thanks Babs :)

COVER: Interview with the vampire. “I can't find a girl” swears the Twilight star. (Do you believe him?)

GIRLS HATE ME

The good news is that Robert Pattinson, the vampire with the good boy face and the brooding appeal, is single. The bad news? Try to go out for dinner with him, and you'll understand.

Since I know that I'll be envied and probably hated too for this article by a lot of women older than 14, since I know that every single word will be vivisected, since I know how mean women older than 14 can be, I prepared myself for this interview with Robert Pattinson scientifically. My mission: find out why this guy drives all the girls crazy.

Los Angeles, February. On a shelf at Book Shop library in West Hollywood I find a biography about him (oh dear, he was born in 1986, he already has a biography) and I read it. It's not that difficult, it's just a hundred pages long with a lot of pictures, its title is The Robert Pattinson Album by Paul Stenning, you can find the book on Amazon. So I find out that he was a washout at school, that he was so skinny when he filmed Harry Potter and the goblet of fire (he played Cedric Diggory) that the production made him work out to get beefy. He says “I felt very unease. Often I was at the margin of the set and I felt like I had to throw up”.

Los Angeles, April. During a business dinner at Chateau Marmont, I meet Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Twilight. I corner her to make her tell me, maybe for the umpteenth time, the story of the audition for the role of Edward Cullen. “We had already seen hundreds of guys. Rob had caught my attention but the production didn't want him: they found him ugly, ugly, ugly! But I'm stubborn so I invited him over at my house with Kristen Stewart. I made them lay on my bed and try out a dialog. They were perfect.”

Also many fans of the saga didn't like Pattinson at first: many bloggers said that he wasn't the right Edward.

The rest is history. Fans frenzy and unanswered questions: is he dating Kristen Stewart or not? Apparently he isn't, but you never know, People magazine always tells they are, but the two actors don't confirm. But people keep talking about it: Robert is in the middle of a frenzy like Leonardo DiCaprio and Titanic.

But Titanic didn't have a sequel (of course, they all died among the icebergs) while Twilight has (of course, they're vampires).

Milan, beginning of May. We already know that the sequel, New Moon, directed by another director, Chris Weitz, will be filmed partly in Italy too, in Montepulciano. I read on newspapers and the internet information about the shooting. I cut out magazines and print blog posts. I find out that the artistic director of the Festival of Roman Theater asked the Minister of Culture to “stop the ongoing havoc: how can you let play Montepulciano off as Volterra?”.

But that's exactly how it went. In the book, Bella goes to Volterra with Alice, Edward's sister, to stop the Volturi (very evil super vampires) from killing him but the production decided to shoot in Montepulciano because, allegedly, it was much cheaper.

Cannes, May 20. During the Festival of Cinema, Vanity Fair Italy gets an exclusive interview with Robert. We meet at the Summit headquarters. Robert is staying in Cannes for a couple of days then he's headed to Italy to shoot the few scenes of New Moon he's in. Almost at the same time he's awaited in New York to shoot Remember Me, a movie completely different from Twilight. In August, he'll go to Vancouver, on the set of Eclipse. So, while we spent the summer sunbathing, Robert Pattinson kept working keeping his face pale.

He enters the empty room, shakes my hand and takes a seat on the couch next to me, putting his face in his hands waiting for the first question. He's wearing a pair of jeans torn at the knees, a dark shirt with the sleeves up. He looks nice and shy, his eyes partially closed like someone who hasn't slept much.

Have you been partying last night?

“I went to three parties, all the wrong ones. Every time I got to the party, it was ending. The third was the worst. I was with Emile Hirsch and his girlfriend, we went into this villa and basically there was nobody around, apart from a hundred photographers. It looked like a paparazzi convention. We ran away fast”. (Gozde: LMAO at paparazzi convention. That's gotta to be a SCARY place)

We don't see much of you in New Moon: just some flashbacks and a few scenes. Are you sorry about that?

“Quite the opposite. This way I'm not under too much pressure.”

Because pressure has been a constant in your life for the past year.

“I didn't have any particular project or dream. I've always lived day by day.”

You were in a band, the Bad Girls. Do you still play?

“I was 15 at the time. Now I play piano and guitar, sometimes, just for myself. I could never do gigs, I'd always be 'the guy from Twilight who wants to be a musician too'. “ (Gozde: It didn't stop Jared or Johnny Depp. Don't let it stop you :))

Is it true that you have to go around with bodyguards?

“Unfortunately yes. It's totally crazy, I know, but I'm getting used to it. But it's only because when I don't have a bodyguard, I feel scared: getting out of a restaurant and into a car is impossible.”

Tabloids and websites say either that you have a new girlfriend every week or that you're dating Kristen Stewart. Is there any truth in that?

“No. I'm single. Basically everything that came out about my private life is false. I think that happens because, honestly, there's not much to say about what I do. While I'm shooting a movie, I don't get out of the hotel: I only go out to go to work or sometimes to dinner. But, if you read the tabloids, it looks like I have a frantic social life.”

But, if you wanted to, it'd be easy for you to find a girlfriend.

“It was much easier before Twilight. Now it's damn hard to go out with a girl. Now, if I go out with a girl, they took pictures of me with her, then they harass her on Facebook, find her email and maybe insult her. And in the end she hates me. I don't want people to hate me or have a secret relationship: it's too tiring. So, for now, no girls.” (Gozde: There are lots of people who already hate me because of you Rob and I still love you. So why don't we give it a go? :))

What do your agent and press agent suggest?

“I don't have a personal press agent and I don't want one. I see it clearly in my head, I don't want my life to become a reality show. In fact, if I see a photographer around, I leave. I don't do many interviews and I don't go out much in public apart from the necessary promotion of the movies. I don't want people to be fed up with my face in a year or two. “

How do you see your future?

“I'd like to have my own production company. What I hate the most about being an actor is waiting for other people to decide what you have to do. I don't like feeling powerless, the total lack of control. I've always admired Warren Beatty's career: actor, director and producer.”

Is it true that you'll make a movie about Bel-Ami?

“Yes, and I'm very happy about it. It's one of my favorite novels. It explains what ambition, rage and thirst for success are. Somehow, Bel Ami is a vampire too, but of a different kind. “

By the way, what's the line about vampires people tell you more frequently?

“You look pale today. They told me that once a minute. Heigh-ho.” (Gozde: LMAO, people are SO cretive :))

The interview is over. I'll see Robert another couple of times here in Cannes, but from a distance: on the red carpet of the premiere of Inglorious Basterds, where he'll almost steal the show to Brad and Angelina, and at the Amfar gala, where they auction his kiss. He looks really embarrassed. Pale, but with red cheeks.(Gozde: I would have put the video of that here but someone got our youtube account suspended...Here's from someone else's account :))

Rome, October. New Moon is done. It'll be out on November 18 but some scenes are shown at the Rome Festival. In Rome I meet Melissa Rosenberg, the scriptwriter of the whole saga, she's a real expert about the saga because, while the director always changes, she's a constant in the movies.

I ask Melissa, a forty something nice lady, the key question of my mission since February: why Edward the character and Robert the actor have become so famous among teenagers all over the world? She says “Edward is brooding and mysterious and Robert has the right face to portray that. At a young age, all girls fall in love with that kind of guy, because they still think that they can 'fix' them. Only after a long time, they realize that there's nothing you can do.”(Gozde: Hahaha!!! That is brilliant :) Is she trying to tell us that fixing Rob is impossible? I think we're cool with that :))

Thanks to freezing_82 in lion_lamb for the scans