For a certain generation, the late 2000s were a time to embrace their more emotional side. For a lot of us, this meant greasing up our legs, slipping into the tightest jeans Topshop sold, and straightening our hair. Still, it never hurt anyone, did it? Well, except for Robert Pattinson.
Yes, Forks’ sparkliest vampire has admitted in an interview with GQ that acting like a big old emo nearly cost him his Twilight job. “I was 21 and kind of wanted to make [Twilight] as art-y as possible,” he explained. “So I was kind of – we had this strange tension where the studio was kind of a little bit scared to make things a little bit too emo and stuff. And I thought that was the only way to play it.”
“It just seems so ridiculous talking about it now because I was literally – I spent so much time just infuriated,” he continued. “That’s definitely something about being 21 as well, because I can’t believe the way I was acting half the time, like when I think back on it.”
Eventually, the studio got so fed up with Pattinson making Edward Cullen into a mopey teenager that his management gave him an ultimatum. Change the character or lose your job.
“The scene when Edward introduces Bella to his family the first time, I remember that being the day because my agent and my manager came up as a surprise visit,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, hey!’ I just thought everything was fine. And then at lunch, they were like, ‘Okay, so whatever you’re doing right now, after lunch, just do the opposite, or you’ll be fired by the end of the day.’ And I was like, ‘Okay!’ And so, that was the only [way] they got me to sort of smile a bit.”
It’s probably a good thing then that Pattinson’s is now playing Bruce Wayne in The Batman. Not to be mean to the Caped Crusader, but of all the superhero crowd, he’s clearly the one who’d be playing Black Parade at the Justice League Christmas Party.