Robert Pattinson Reflects on Becoming Edward Cullen: An Interview with “De 15 a 20”

Finding someone real who could incarnate Edward Cullen was no easy task. Not only he would need to be a great actor, but share physical resemblances with the character, which are way too unrealistic: It’s about someone stunningly gorgeous, etc. And although, at the beginning, the fans were against the fact that Robert Pattinson played this vampire’s role, bit by bit they started to accept it.

I’m in the hotel where our interview will take place, and Robert is late, it’s understandable, because he’s been all day giving interviews, so I try not to desperate. Suddenly, the door opens and he enters, apologizing with an English accent that melts me. He’s tall and thin, has white skin and wears jeans, a t-shirt and above that, a sweater. He’s hair is all messy as if he’s just woken and he plays with a water bottle on his hands…When he finally sits down, we start our discussion.

15 to 20: What made you participate in the movie? Did you know anything about the books?
R: No, I hadn’t read them, as I didn’t even know how to play the character. When I was reading the script with my agent I told him: “no!, no way, it’s physically impossible to do this.”

15 to 20: Why did you think that?
R: Because past the acting, this character has impossible physical characteristics: an incredible body, and he’s beautiful; which is why I thought they’d tell me: “No, thank you. Next…” The truth is that I went to the casting without getting ready for it, I had no idea of the dialogues nor anything, and Kristen was there. I wasn’t expecting her to be called as Bella, I was very strong in the casting and that told me how to play Edward.

15 to 20: At the beginning the fans were against you as Edward. Did you feel any pressure related to that?
R: If you try to do things just to please the fans, you’ll end up with a bad performance. Right at the beginning, I made a decision: “I’ll play Edward like this and that’s that, I don’t care what they say.” And well, I tried very hard but I think that because I’m a boy and because it’s a book for females, I should try to find something more, so I had to go deeper than most of the fans who read the book.

15 to 20: Was it fun to play a vampire?
R: I don’t believe to be playing a vampire’s role, I don’t even see myself as one, or do I? (laughs). I would’ve prefered it was a vampire as the ones we all know, because the ones in the book are rare, so palid with weird eyes, but so normal since they live in the real world without raising suspicions. On the other hand, it was fun, I did action scenes, climbed a lot of trees…hahaha.

15 to 20: You mentioned the real vampires, were you a vampire movie’s fan?
R: Well, it’s that in this movie they aren’t scary, like in Nosferature…I want to be “that” vampire, it’d cool! But, as you know, this book is not about the clichés on vampires, so I treated it as if it were a disease, as if you weren’t the same after someone bites you, because you wake up three days later and want to kill people, you’re a thousand times stronger, faster, and you’re going to live forever, which, if you think about it, is a nightmare…It’s horrible.

15 to 20: What was the hardest part of playing Edward?
R: Edward has a certain aura that makes it so that humans fear him instinctively and they don’t know why. That hits too hard and I think it’s very hard it’ll be seen on screen, but I imagined it as when a lion is in the jungle and there are many animals around it. You know it’s not hunting but you’ll keep distance. And that’s what I wanted to incorporate in the movie, that given, there’s a very cool scene where all the birds fly away from school, literally all animals go away and that gives the idea in a very subtle way. That was the hardest part. (Pauses) Well, that and being the most beautiful thing in the whole world. Hahaha. Although there wouldn’t be much I could do about that.

15 to 20: In the book, the Edward character is always seventeen years old. If you shoot the remaining movies, how are they going to make you look always that young?
R: With botox injections!! (laughs). No, trully, that worries me. I don’t know how, I think they’ll have to start shooting them very soon.

15 to 20: I know you play the Piano and in the movie, Edwards writes a song for Bella. Will you play the Piano in the movie?
R: Yes, I’ll play a piece composed by Carter Burwell.

15 to 20: Have they included any of your pieces in the soundtrack?
R: They have, there are two by me, although I have no idea what they are doing there, hahaha. One is used for the key moments, which is a bit bizarre because there’s a scene with Kristen and I, and there’s a close up and I hear myself playing the guitar, my voice singing in the background, and my face there.

15 to 20: After you placed Cedric Diggory’s role in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie, weren’t you worried about moving to another literary saga, which is, more of the same?
R: Yes, but it’s a different role, it has nothing to do (with Harry Potter), and the plotline is completely different.

15 to 20: I know you’ve read Stephanie Meyer’s book from Edward’s point of view to get ready to portray him, right?
R: Yes, I read it when we were half way through the shooting, and well, since the Twilight book was written from Bella’s perspective and she doesn’t really always know what Edward is – because he lies to her all the time and hides things -, I had quite a lot of liberty to play him as I wanted. Although in the book it’s told that everything about Edward is positive, when you look at the real situation, everything is – except Bella – completely negative! Imagine one day when you wake and say: “I didn’t ask to be a vampire…and now I want to kill a lot of people…and I feel terrible about that. I can’t die, but I don’t want to live like this…I found the only person who makes me want to keep living! But I also desire to kill her!”, you know he’s not alright.

15 to 20: How did you manage to develop your vampire habilities? I read you wrote a diary as Edward, do you think you’ll ever publish it or something like that?
R: It’s not really a diary…I don’t know how it started (laughs). Well, I hadn’t noticed the difficulty in portraying the character until I started to read the script. He’s a very complex character, so I went to Portland two or three months alone before starting to shoot, and didn’t do anything else besides reading the script and the books to find milestones that would help me playing his role, so I wrote some things…Say, if you prepare too much for a role, a moment will come when all you’ll be thinking is about that, so there things like suicides notes and the such, it was a bit worrying to tell the truth.