Scans & Translation: Robert Pattinson’s Interview with Gioia

PATTINSON & STEWART
We are coming but won’t stop for long.

In a few days will be in cinemas the first part of the Twilight Saga finale. And in the meantime a few things have happened: they got used to the fame, fell in love in real life too and maybe got a bit tired.

ROBERT PATTINSON
DON’T MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A ZOO ANIMAL

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this. For sure I am not to be a star, maybe not even an actor. There are people desiring success from early age and do everything to be famous. If they can, when they get into a room they get full attention. And that moment of satisfaction justifies all the hard work and the compromises done to get there. But I didn’t do that. I just found myself in this situation. If I walk into a room and everyone is staring at me I don’t feel at ease. I feel like an animal zoo sometimes and it’s not such a good feeling.”

Maybe Robert Pattinson should have thought about it before accepting the role of Edward in Twilight, which brought him to be rich and famous, not to mention idol of fan girls all over the world. But he doesn’t seem to be falsely humble. He is everything but a star, spontaneous and smiling as he is, for the way he shows himself for the exclusive Gioia interview: half-shaved head, a shirt that surely has had better times and a pair of pants that can’t even be defined as worn-out. Someone who wants to lie would dress better, I think when I see him.

Don’t you care about the label now that you are famous or you have always been like this?
-I feel stupid wearing jacket and tie and, unless it’s required, I dress casual. I like the idea of being seen as I really am. Also I always looked on too elegant people.

Nice hair-cut.
-It’s for a movie, Cosmopolis. It’s done now but I kept the cut. I like it and find it interesting.

Twilight is over. Are you willing to change your life?
-I don’t know yet. I haven’t been only a vampire these years so it’s not like my career is over.

Didn’t you get bored playing always the same role?
-Let’s say it wasn’t simple because it’s a vampire nature not to be expressive all the time. There are lots of things he can’t do: beside his love- almost obsession- for Bella, he can’t have impulses, urges, feelings. There’s the risk you end up doing always the same things e often, after a scene, I happened to stop and having the feeling I had just repeated the previous scene. But we always tried to privilege the originality.

If you weren’t a main character of the series, would you have been fan of it?
-Probably the answer to this will put me in troubles. The truth is I don’t know. I’ve always been against the commercial sagas. I think I’d like the movies themselves but I can’t understand why people are so crazy about it. And actually I always enjoyed most the poor movies.

At the beginning there was lots of skepticism about you: fans didn’t like you. And now…
-They are not interested in who I am, what I do or how I act. They care about my face. If my face was pretty much as they had imagined reading the book, then it’s fine. Then, after doing the first movie, your face becomes the character and the problem is solved. Thinking about it it’s kind of sad.

Comparing Twilight and Remember Me I have the feeling that the second one – haggard boy, beard, cigarette, glass in a hand- was nearer to you. Am I wrong?
-No. When I read the script I identified with the character straight away. Usually movies with a young character are all the same: there’s a kid knowing nothing about life and learning everything during the movie. In Remember Me you could feel there was something different behind it. I started with the idea of playing myself cause I found his lifestyle and moods similar to mine. Then I changed direction: playing yourself is impossible.

It’s not for John Malkovich.
-I think it is. We can play the person we have created and is perceived by people but we can’t be ourselves on the screen.

What do you mean with “perceived by people”?
-In my case Edward, the vampire. People don’t talk about me, don’t shout at me, don’t rip their hair off for me: they do it for Edward. The come to see him so I try to get away from that name. I run away, get in a car and am another person. They look at you but see only what they want to see.

Did you imagine you’d have all this success?
-No, it was crazy and unexpected. I remember one day, in Munich, at the Olympic Stadium, I was in front of 30.000 people came there for a ten minutes press conference. It was the most ridiculous thing I ever lived. If you start thinking they are there for you and you start convincing yourself to be fabulous, you’ll get crazy for sure.

Don’t you feel fabulous?
-Not at all.

Not even a bit?
-No. If you start feeling like that then every morning, when you stare at yourself in the mirror, you should repeat yourself you are the best person in the world. On the contrary, I often think I have the complete opposite personality required to bear the weight of fame.

So why did you decide to do this job?
-When I started no one watched my movies. And the ones who watched them didn’t even notice me but my work, the role I was playing. I acted not even thinking about the career or the effect. Today lots of people think to know me even if they never met me in their heads they know what to expect according to what they assume to know about me.

So what’s your survival strategy then?
-The best thing an actor can do is to live in the most absolute reserve. Which is impossible considering I have to be interviewed by people like you to promote a movie. Then, when magazines can’t find anything good, they make it up.

You don’t seem to be at your ease with it.
-Every time I’m in a crowd I take my mind off and think: this is not me. My body is here but my mind is somewhere else. And I always try to remember it’s a job, it’s not my life, even if keeping the control is hard.

Speaking of jobs, David Cronenberg came to you for his latest movie.
-Right when I was thinking I’d never work with great directors anymore. Often fame doesn’t help getting roles in good quality movies. But yes: Cronenberg came to me. I told him I’d take a week to decide and I was actually finding a way to tell him that I was not right for that, that I didn’t get the script and I wouldn’t accept it. The only way would have been to call him and say: hey I’m a nerd/loser. Then I thought I didn’t want to be that so I said yes.

Is it true you got a dog during the shootings?
-Yes, I found it nearby the set and I kept him.

Such a sweet thing coming from a vampire.
-Right. Maybe I was looking for a friend who couldn’t talk.

Scans and Translation + Kristen's interview