Robert Pattinson: Almost famous

LOS ANGELES — You are until three months ago a relative unknown. You play a gig at Sunset’s Whisky A-go-go and people never notice you more than your musical talents. You walk along the sidewalks of West Hollywood and people never bother you except for occasional back glances, which is really just natural for a guy who is as gorgeous and striking as you are.

You are an actor who is still waiting for a break. You are hardly living on the paycheck you received from your last acting appearance. You drive a second hand car and live in a crumbling apartment. But you are not complaining.

Then the biggest break of your career comes along. The biggest role a young actor could ever get — almost like getting that plum “young Indiana Jones” role that went to then unknown Shia LeBeouf — lands on your lap. Would you trade your rather blissful anonymity for the expected craziness that inevitably comes with a role as hugely popular as the one you are offered?

For Robert Pattinson, being cast as Edward Cullen — the most devastatingly handsome vampire in the whole world, the answer is quite obvious, “it feels like my own opinion is completely validated now,” he jokes.

The British actor won the coveted part against other more prominent actors in the highly-anticipated movie adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Vampire romance Twilight.

Twilight tells the love story of Bella Swan and Edward. They are both 17, but the problem lies not in their apparent youth but in their marked difference: Bella is a plain-looking human while Edward is a vampire, the most stunning and most beautiful vampire in the world.

“I spent such a long time trying to bypass that aspect of his character. I had to base it from Bella’s perspective — she is in love with him and infatuated by him — and so it could be anybody. She could be looking at the ugliest man and see past all the flaws. She sees him being beautiful as a metaphor,” Robert explains before breaking into a laugh.

The STAR met with the strikingly handsome actor recently in Beverly Hills to talk about the movie, his character, his sudden popularity, his fans and how he prepared for the greatest role of his young career. The jovial actor would break into sheepish smiles and hearty laughter every so often during the interview.

“I had an idea how to play the part and people will like it or they won’t like it. You can’t convince everybody, you just do what you think is right and accept the consequences.”

The actor confides that he “hated the idea (being tossed around of him) being part of a movie that seems like to be cashing in on a book that sold a lot” that’s why he spent two months in Oregon studying his character and building a six-pack. “I was really unfit last year so I worked out for a long time. I spent a long time by myself and the only person I saw was my trainer. I read every day. I only eat one meal a day at exactly the same time.”

He was so fixated on capturing the book’s description of Edward’s granite body and abs that when the director saw him she screamed at him and asked what he was doing.

“It was written to be aesthetically pleasing but I wanted to interpret having a six-pack as a character and so I thought I’d lose every ounce of body fat I had. In the end I felt like I looked like an alien,” he reveals and lets out a loud laugh.

He regrouped, started thinking about his character, gained back a few pounds and was so relieved to be talking with people again. “I am too self-critical. I used to give myself a hard time, that’s why Catherine had a hard time with me,” he says with a grin.

Robert co-stars with young but equally intense actress Kristen Stewart, who plays the other coveted part of Bella Swan. The seasoned actress was the first to be cast and had some hand in the casting of Robert. She is best known as the diabetic daughter of Jodie Foster in the suspense-thriller Panic Room.

Catherine Hardwicke, the movie’s director noted that she had to contend with both actors’ obsessive desire to play their parts to perfection. “I had two very serious actors and it was quite a challenge to work with them,” she declares.

“Kristen gets very into the part,” Robert adds. “I trusted that and it was really good. She has to put up with a lot from me. It was ridiculous. I don’t think very many actresses would put up with it. I spent every day dissecting every single little lines — I even dissected her lines! We definitely had a strong bond over it.”

The two stars’ little fights would soon be replaced by constant flirting. Entertainment Weekly noted that the producers, at one point, were actually worried that their two main stars were actually falling in love.

Were the reports true that Robert actually proposed marriage to Kristen? “Yes, he did that,” Kristen acknowledges, “but I am not sure if he was serious.”

Asked about it, Robert laughs and reveals that he actually has proposed to countless women and on the day of our interview some are even sending him text messages asking him if their wedding is still on.

Wedding proposals or not, the actor has a lot more to worry these days. He has become the hottest heartthrob in town and is on the verge of becoming a major Hollywood star. “I think you can control it in a way if you are careful. I have been pretty much an idiot my whole life and it’s a little daunting to change your lifestyle from being an idiot into not being an idiot but I think it’s a good thing,” he quips. “I think I have to think about being more responsible and less reckless now.”

He has gotten very popular these days that innocent remarks like him not washing his hair in three weeks end up in the wire reports. “I read that. That’s one of the annoying things of working in the movies,” he says while trying to control a fit of laughter. “It feels weird. I know one thing why I say these things and it’s like... I mean, I haven’t washed my hair in three years!” he further jokes.

How about girls running after him now?

“Well it’s nice but they’re all pretty young,” he remarks.

But there are other older womenwho love him.

“Yeah, they tell me that ‘there are Twilight moms who love you’ and I can’t take that too seriously,” he says, “’Edward breaks up the Twilight family’ — that would be too funny.”

Was he ever the pretty boy in school?

“Not really. I didn’t play sports or anything. I used to be like kind of gangly. I used to play music but it wasn’t like a rock band because there was a lot more improvisation.”

Robert has two songs in the Twilight soundtrack. “They weren’t really written for the movie,” he discloses. “I wrote them last year when I was doing music and when Catherine heard them she thought it fit well into the story and asked me if she could put it in the soundtrack.”

Girls young and old would rejoice knowing that Robert is not in a relationship at the moment. The 22-year-old actor shares that he is attracted to smart women. “I was watching 30 Rock the other day and I really like Tina Fey, she is like the sexiest woman!”

Celebrity crushes are one thing that the good-humored actor is trying to keep to himself. “You tell people who your celebrity crush is hoping not to bump into them in the future so you always want to think of the right one to say. I used to say I liked Elisabeth Shue until I realized that she is like 50 now.” He corrects himself later and asserts that it was actually Patricia Arquette, during her True Romance days, which he had a crush on. “I can have a type on anyone,” he says.

Asked if he could relate to the kind of obsessive love between the characters in the movie, Robert replies, “It’s not about being obsessive. I think it is not about obsession but about reliance. She becomes like a drug to him. For someone who is so lonely for so long and literally has nothing in his life, not that I relate to it — but I get it, if you’d find someone who’d make you feel again, it’s obvious why he is so addicted to her. Edward thinks Bella is the only one. A hundred and eight years is not even that long a time as compared to 5,000 years but to him it’s a lifetime.”

He likens Edward’s loneliness to the 80-year-old protagonist in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel Memories of a Melancholy Whore. “I like love stories between old people. I wanted to make Twilight more about that,” he emphasizes. “I always liked relationships that are like a nightmare, like you would have to fight for something — I can relate to that. I guess I am crazy that way.”

Robert considers Los Angeles his current home. He hasn’t been back to his native London in a while. “I have lived here for a few months. I’ve only been to London for a total of not more than 10 days this year. I really want to go back but I don’t like flying. I always think I am gonna die on a plane.”

Playing a vampire has somehow made him more fearful of death. “But I think I am just a paranoid person,” he reiterates. “I am scared in the back of cabs now. I think I am gonna die in a cab. I even get scared when I am driving.”

And he does not wish to live forever, either. “I guess I am more afraid of living forever than not being able to kill myself than dying,” he says with a little serious note in his voice.

Robert may wish not to live forever but in Hollywood he is surely going to find some semblance of immortality — and it is all because of Edward Cullen.

 Twilight is released by Viva International and opens Nov. 26 nationwide.