Rob’s Cross To Bear Heartthrob Vampire

Fortunately for fans and unfortunately,it seems,for Rob,the tally is short by about a year. Filming may wrap up on the Twilight series in seven months,but Summit has decided to split the final Twilight novel by Stephenie Meyer,Breaking Dawn,into two.
Rob,24,is fully aware that he probably would not have much of a career without the Twi-hards,as the mostly female following of the movies are known. His only role of note prior to Edward Cullen was a bit part in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,as Cedric Diggory. To achieve this level of success so soon after coming to Hollywood — Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon took in a cumulative $1.1 billion at the global box-office — is the rarely achieved dream of young actors.

But the searing,worldwide fame has left him emotionally raw. Hunted by the tabloid media,Rob changed hotels six times in the month and a half he spent in Los Angeles filming Water for Elephants. He arrived for coffee wearing both a baseball cap and sunglasses to cover his floppy locks and haunting good looks,and he immediately vetoed a booth handpicked by a publicist for its privacy as too public. “Kris is better about dealing with photographers than I am,” he said,referring to his equally sought after co-star,Kristen Stewart,after finally settling on an outdoor nook surrounded by tall hedges. “I’ve learned to let it go a bit,but I’m still really bothered by it,” he said. “The more you are exposed,the more people irrationally hate you,I think we reached a point,a peak,with New Moon where the stories became so saturated into the culture that it started to feel normal. It’s like the tabloids don’t know what to write anymore because they’ve used up all their scandals.”

He also worries about getting pigeonholed as nothing more than a teen idol. He excels as a pale brooder in the Twilight movies. But Rob talks about a desire to play “characters that are not parodies”,and he would love to do a comedy with Todd Solondz. He would like to have a career like Joaquin Phoenix somebody who makes unorthodox roles pop. To this end the London-born Rob has been busy accepting roles that seem linked only by a quirky diversity. In Water for Elephants,an adaptation of Sara Gruen’s novel,he plays a veterinarian who joins a Depression-era circus after his parents are killed. “I do think the teen idol thing is something that Robert Pattinson needs to worry about,” said Jeanine Basinger,the chairwoman of the film studies department at Wesleyan University and the author of The Star Machine. “The question is whether an actor is so perfect at one thing at a particular point in time that the audience refuses to accept him as anything else.”

Much is riding on Water for Elephants because Rob’s leading roles outside of Twilight have disappointed or failed at the box office. The inexpensive romantic drama Remember Me,released in March,grossed only $19 million in North America. Little Ashes,a foreign film in which Rob played Salvador Dalí,barely registered a blip in limited release last year.
Part of Rob’s challenge is undoubtedly the vampire. Even the Harry Potter stories have progressed,Daniel Radcliffe has been allowed to grow up. By his Twilight character’s very nature,a vampire who doesn’t age,Rob is stuck. “I hope it doesn’t start looking ridiculous,” Rob says,referring to himself growing older but playing the same character.
_ NYT