‘Twilight’: Robert Pattinson Learned How to Do a Basic Skill for ‘Eclipse’
Robert Pattinson may be The Batman nowadays, but to many people he’ll always be Edward Cullen. From 2008 to 2012, he portrayed the vegetarian vampire. The Twilight film franchise helped the actor to become a household name and earn millions of dollars. Of course, playing an immortal being wasn’t always the easiest role. In fact, Pattinson had to undergo some training to play the often melancholy member of the undead.
Robert Pattinson took vampire classes to play Edward Cullen in ‘Twilight’
Pattinson and the rest of the actors who played the Cullens actually took classes before filming the first Twilight movie. In the classes, the actors were taught how to act like vampires. Naturally, adopting the movement of a predator was a big emphasis of the classes.
But that was hardly the only training Pattinson had to undergo. In a 2010 interview with Collider, the “Let Me Sign” singer shared that he spent some time learning to perform a pretty basic skill with more precision.
The ‘Eclipse’ actor had to learn how to run with more precision
“I guess I had to learn how to run properly,” Pattinson explained. “In the last two [Twilight films], I ran in a limp slash-skip, and I had to look like I could run more solidly this time. So, I spent a lot of time on a giant treadmill, like one of those wheels mice run around on, and got filmed doing it to improve my form.”
Fortunately for Pattinson, he was much better at running than he was at baseball. Twilight fans are likely to recall the famous vampire baseball scene from the first movie. As someone who’d never played the sport before, Pattinson was tasked with training for that too. However, unlike running, The Lighthouse actor wasn’t interested in taking his baseball training seriously.
Pattinson was terrible at baseball training
“I’m terrible at baseball,” Pattinson shared in a separate 2008 interview with Collider. “Catherine was so intense about wanting me to look like a pro baseball player and I just didn’t care at all. For a lot of the rehearsal period that we could’ve been doing stuff there I wanted to be doing proper rehearsals and she was like, ‘No. You have to look like a baseball player.'”
Pattinson continued: “So I was like f***ing having this teacher show me the ready position and Catherine was like, ‘Okay, let me see it.’ I was like, ‘Listen, I’ll do it on the day. I’ll do a ready position. I can f***ing squat.’ So I finally did it and then for the rest of the shoot whenever she had a question about blocking or something like that I was like, ‘I think I should do my ready position. I think it’s really, really necessary.’”
Clearly, Pattinson experienced a variety of athletic training while starring in the Twilight movies. And the films likely helped him prepare for other action-packed roles that he’d choose to take on in the future.
