Robert Pattinson in Mikrogids (Netherlands)

Trans­la­tion
Robert Pat­tin­son (23) is the new act­ing sen­sa­tion from Eng­land. Hordes of teenage girls adore him, includ­ing their moth­ers, but also the inter­me­di­ate cat­e­gory is sen­si­tive to its charms. Mikro guide was with the press pre­sen­tatiuon of Remem­ber me (from Thurs­day, April 1st in our cinemas).

A hand­some guy with a black base­ball cap, a big beard, and a look which, although friendly, is also eva­sive. This is how we can best describe the appear­ance of Robert Pat­tin­son. The beard appears to belong to his lat­est film Bel Ami, cur­rently being filmed. And from this look speaks the unfa­mil­iar­ity with the mega star sta­tus which the British actor owes to his lead­ing role as vam­pire Edward Cullen in Twi­light and the roman­tic com­edy hor­ror sequel New Moon.

The third part of the Twi­light Saga — Eclipse — will be released later on, but in the mean­time Pat­tin­son fans can admire in his newest film Remem­ber me. Though most will be sur­prised by it, says the actor. “Remem­ber me is com­pletely dif­fer­ent from anything I’ve done. Instead of a strange dude or some other weird fan­tasy fig­ure I finally play a nor­mal guy. It seems noth­ing spe­cial, but film scripts often only include mur­der­ers, drug addicts, sui­ci­dal and other psy­chi­atric patients. When you do find a part about a nor­mal guy, he is imme­di­ately com­pletely dull.”

Observ­ing
Pat­tin­sons movie-character Tyler is any­thing but dull. He is very rebel­lious, and con­stantly clashes with his highly for­mal father, played by Pierce Bros­nan. “But with that rebel­lious atti­tude he also shuts out his own feel­ings,” the actor explains. “Remem­ber me is actu­ally about the break­ing down of that armor.”

We are talk­ing about a very per­sonal film, Pat­tin­son stresses. “Before we started film­ing, I had many months of close con­tact with the direc­tor and screen­writer. Origi­nally, I really intended to act like myself com­pletely. I didn’t do it even­tu­ally, even though there are still parts of me in Tyler. When I was younger, I found it intru­ig­ing to play with emo­tions. I pre­tended the whole time. Only the last two years I started to think: Hey, I’m really sad or really happy. So Tyler’s devel­op­ment I know from per­sonal expe­ri­ence. Or, in other words: his armor was a bit like mine. ”

Although he may no longer play hide and seek with itself, there are still some doors that closed on Pat­tin­son. “Fame is quite a bur­den. For one, the fact that I can hardly observe peo­ple peace­fully any­more, while for a true actor this is incred­i­bly impor­tant. Instead I get stared at him­self. I’ve expereienced walk­ing down the street, and sud­denly I ended up walk­ing into a kind of trap with forty pho­tog­ra­phers. It makes you pretty weary. Not that I want every­thing as it was before. Though some­times I long for that. ”

Exhausted
And all this atten­tion from women? “Ehmmm” Pat­tin­son begins hes­i­tantly, as he fid­dles furi­ously with the cap of his Coke bot­tle. “To be hon­est: I think it’s very fright­en­ing. When peo­ple impose them­selves, that’s even down­right repul­sive. It sounds ridicu­lous to com­plain now, but it both­ers me. It is all so unre­al­is­tic. I never used to get much atten­tion. I have to watch myself that I don’t get too sus­pi­cious. If any­one approaches me, I already have a ten­dency to say ‘what do you want from me? ” while that per­son may not want any­thing and just wants to be nice. ”

While he used to be a very good boy, now the actor has the urge to be rebel­lious. “In that respect I feel very sim­i­lar to Tyler.” He chuck­les. “I recently started trash­ing hotel­rooms and stuff. Well, not really. But I do use my aggres­sion in my parts. In Tyler of course, and now in Georges Duroy, my char­ac­ter in Bel Ami. That guy hates the world so much that he con­stantly bursts out into anger. I can really indulge myself now in that part, though I now know that anger is pretty tir­ing. After one days on the set I’m exhausted. ”

Com­fort
Act­ing is a fun out­let, Pat­tin­son agrees, but above all it is a pro­fes­sion where he would like to grow. “That’s a big part of why I don’t want to be the roman­tic hero. The more vari­ety in parts I play, the more I learn. Allthough I real­ize that I’m taking a big risk by doing that. The pres­sure is high any­way when you’re famous. Espe­cially when you’ve become famous as eas­ily as I have, because what did I do anyway to accom­plish that? I’m con­vinced I’ll have to work hard for at least ten years to really earn the sta­tus I’ve seemed to have acquired so eas­ily. ” In Remem­ber Me, love is the big eye-opener. Pat­tin­son rather won’t answer if he rec­og­nizes that. His life in hotels, which he’s been forced to live in the last three years, doesn’t seem very roman­tic anyway.

“Tremen­dously bor­ing”, he sighs. “Late last year I almost bought a house in the United States because I no longer stand it, but luck­ily I dis­cov­ered in time how crazy expen­sive it is. I don’t even know if I still have a job here in the com­ing years. So for now I get my com­fort from playin my gui­tar, which always trav­els with me. I used to not need any­thing else. Until I returned to Lon­don and dis­cov­ered that your social life com­pletely col­lapses if you don’t stay in con­tact with peo­ple for one year.” And now? “Skype is an ideal way of com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” Pat­tin­son says, his eyes wan­der again. He wants to com­mu­ni­cate, but not too much.

Pro­file
Name: Robert Thomas-Pattinson
Born: May 13, 1986 in Lon­don
Fam­ily sit­u­a­tion: Mother Claire worked at a mod­el­ing agency, father Richard imported cars from the United States. Robert has two older sis­ters, Lizzy and Vito­ria
Edu­ca­tion: Sec­ondary School, plus years of gui­tar and piano lessons.
Career: Started a career in mod­el­ling when he was twelf, he quit four years later, because of lack of suc­cess (accord­ing to him­self). At fif­teen he started act­ing at an ama­teur com­pany. In 2004 he made his debut in the British tele­vi­sion film Ring of the Nibelungs. A year later he got the part of Cedric Dig­gory, seen in Harry Pot­ter IV and V. Last year he broke through with Twi­light. The sound­track of this movie holds two of his own songs.
Pri­vate Sit­u­a­tion: Rela­tion­ship with Twilight-actress Kris­ten Stewart.

Monique van de Sande (trans­la­tion by DreamySim1)
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