London-born actor Robert Pattinson skyrocketed to fame with the massively popular Twilight
series — and he recently made headlines when it was announced he'd be playing the
titular role in The Batman.
"And…?"
From modeling gigs to his sometimes dramatic love life, here’s everything you need to
know about Robert Pattinson.
After honing his craft in several theater productions, Robert Pattinson landed his first
big break at the age of 17: He was cast as Cedric Diggory in the 2005 film Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire.
"For a moment there, I thought you were gonna let him get me."
He chose playing Cedric over attending university, and the film took his acting career to a whole
new level.
His performance was widely praised, and numerous publications hailed him as "the next Jude
Law," a label that proved difficult to shake.
In a 2008 interview with the BBC, Pattinson was asked whether he agreed with that assessment,
and he replied:
"No.
[...] You get a bit of heat and everybody says you're this, you're that.
Then it dies down.
You just do jobs.
I don't know any actor who's followed through, when they say he's the next this and then
he actually has become the next that.
I don't get that.
I don't see what the point is."
The fourth Harry Potter film put Robert Pattinson on the map, but Twilight turned him into a
household name.
Pattison landed the role of Edward Cullen in a rather roundabout way: He was in Los
Angeles auditioning for a role he assumed was already in the bag — and wound up bombing
that audition.
In 2017, he told W magazine:
"The next day, it was the Twilight audition, and I think I was at such a kind of nothing-
to-lose state, it was quite easy for me to do."
And so he was cast as an unusually sensitive vampire who falls in love with a young woman
named Bella, portrayed by Kristen Stewart.
The role earned him legions of fans — many of them teenage girls — but that didn't
stop him from mocking the Twilight franchise in interviews.
"My entire performance was based on having extreme discomfort having contact lenses in
your eyes, just like…
It's kinda like that."
"If Edward was not a fictional character, and you met him in reality, you know, he's
one of those guys, he'd be an axe murderer."
He also wasn't opposed to mocking Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight novels.
"I was convinced that Stephanie was convinced she was Bella.
And it was, like, a book that wasn't supposed to be published."
It sounds like Pattinson has softened his stance in recent years.
In April 2019, he told USA Today:
"It's lovely now that the mania is not so intense.
[...] Now the intensity has died down and it's just very warm memories."
In May 2019, it was announced that Robert Pattinson would play a young incarnation of
a certain brooding superhero in The Batman, a film that's set to premiere in 2021.
Rather predictably, the news sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy, and not everyone was onboard
with the idea.
One user wrote,
"I've never been so disappointed in a #Batman casting, #RobertPattinson is a horrible choice
to play the character."
Film critic Mike McGranaghan was clearly torn by the casting choice, tweeting:
"I honestly don't know how to feel about Robert Pattinson as Batman.
On one hand, I hate the idea, because I can't even remotely picture him as the Dark Knight.
On the other hand, I absolutely love the idea for the exact same reason."
Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel offered this particularly hot take:
"If you think about it, it makes sense: He was a vampire, now he's a bat."
In 2012, Robert Pattinson's relationship with Kristen Stewart turned him into irresistible
tabloid fodder.
Though they tried to keep the relationship under wraps, they were forced to come clean
in the wake of a highly publicized scandal.
Stewart finally acknowledged their relationship after she was photographed being intimate
with then-married director Rupert Sanders, who worked with Stewart on Snow White and
the Huntsman.
"When a famous actress gets caught cheating by the paparazzi and then makes a very public
apology, it's no surprise that people everywhere are reacting with 140-characters or less."
Stewart profusely apologized in a public statement, writing:
"This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person
I love and respect the most, Rob.
I love him, I love him, I'm so sorry."
Stewart and Pattinson briefly got back together after the scandal, but they split for good
in 2013.
In 2019, Pattinson suggested that he's on good terms with Stewart, so perhaps this story
has a happy ending after all.
With his chiseled features, it's not terribly surprising that Robert Pattinson would try
his hand at modeling.
He told Closer magazine that he left the industry after four years at the age of 16, explaining:
"When I first started I was quite tall and looked like a girl, so I got lots of jobs,
because it was during that period where the androgynous look was cool.
Then, I guess, I became too much of a guy, so I never got any more jobs.
I had the most unsuccessful modelling career."
In 2010, at the height of Twilight fever, Pattinson was reportedly offered a huge contract
with Burberry, but he didn't take it.
A source told the Mirror:
"They went to ­Robert but he ­immediately, politely, turned them down.
As far as Robert sees things he’s an actor by trade and that’s his art.
He doesn’t want to start becoming a brand or anything."
If that's true, Pattinson obviously had a change of heart just a few short years later.
In 2013, he became the face of Dior Homme, and he's been working with the brand ever
since.
As it turns out, Jude Law was the face of Dior Homme just a few years prior — which
means Robert Pattinson became "the next Jude Law" after all.
"What's he got, better than me?!"
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