‘Twilight’: Why Robert Pattinson’s Audition Involved Anxiety and ‘A Lot of Crying’ for the Actor
Robert Pattinson will be the new Batman. It will be a masked man unlike the world has seen before, at least based on what Pattinson tells the press.
At the beginning of his career, Pattinson took on a lot of franchise roles, like Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. Now he’s being much more selective about what he takes on.
Pattinson seems to be going down the path of other big-name actors like Leonardo DiCaprio. Now that he’s made a name for himself, he can tackle the complicated characters he thrives on.
None of that would be possible if he hadn’t landed the role of Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise, launching himself into stardom. And that almost didn’t happen.
Robert Pattinson brought his guitar to the audition
According to Pattinson, his Twilight audition was basically a huge disaster. First, he brought his guitar. Why? Even he’s not sure.
Pattinson did his homework, read the script, and knew that the character played guitar in a scene. So he brought his own. Unfortunately, it ended up just being an awkward prop he had to carry around since he didn’t prepare anything to play on it.
Pattinson says he “just walked in and they were like, ‘Oh. You brought a guitar. Do you want to play us a song,’ and I was like, ‘No. This is the worst decision I ever made.'”
Pattinson was so discouraged by the interaction that he called his parents and told them he wanted to quit acting all together. Luckily he didn’t. Somehow Pattinson landed the part, even though the guitar incident wasn’t the only thing that went wrong during his audition.
Edward Cullen was in great shape, Robert Pattinson was not
Edward Cullen was written as a heartthrob. Unfortunately, Pattinson wasn’t in heartthrob shape when he went to his audition. To make matters worse, he had no body hair and the hair on his head was in rough shape.
He had recently died his hair black for another acting gig, but his light roots were showing. He wasn’t in great shape, and he had waxed, although he didn’t mention if that was for the other role or not. According to Pattinson: “I had this hairless, chubby body. I looked like a baby with a wig on.”
Pattinson was already nervous and self-conscious at auditions. To make matters worse, he had to take his shirt off. That brought him to tears. He told the casting director, “‘If that’s what we’re being judged on, I haven’t got the job.’ It was a lot of crying.”
Taylor Lautner also had a strange audition
Unlike Pattinson, the other heartthrob of the series, Taylor Lautner, didn’t have as hard a time at his audition. That may be because he didn’t take it as seriously as Pattinson. While Pattinson describes how he brought a guitar to the audition since Edward plays, Lautner didn’t even seem to know what the movie was about before showing up to the audition.
Lautner claims: “I had no idea what ‘Twilight’ was. I asked people. I said, ‘What is this thing?’ They said, ‘There’s vampires, and you’re in a forest.’ That’s really all I heard about it.” It’s hard to imagine how both of these actors got the part, with such different auditions.
The answer is actually Kristen Stewart. The star of the Twilight movie franchise liked both actors, and she pushed for them to be cast alongside her. Stewart has said: “I take credit for both of these guys actually, fully and completely.”
Although Lautner may have been cast without Stewart’s help, Pattinson probably did need her good word after his dismal audition.
