Look what I found in my March issue of the
Costco Connection! They interviewed Robert Pattinson to correspond with the release of their Special DVD and Exclusive Ultimate Fan Gift Set. Thanks,
Costco!
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE:By J. Rentilly
WHILE DOOMED beauty may be the cinematic
stock in trade of handsome, dashing,
22-year-old actor Robert Pattinson, the
English actor who played Cedric Diggory in
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, he lives a
perfectly charmed life. “Lucky,” he calls it with
a modest laugh, preparing for the March 21
DVD release of Twilight, yet another blockbuster
adaptation of a beloved literary property,
in this case the vampire novels of
Stephenie Meyer. In the film, Pattinson plays—
what else?—another doomed beauty, the
angst-ridden blood-sucker Edward Cullen.
The Costco Connection: Tell me about
the differences between being a young, hand-
some movie star and being a young, handsome
vampire.
Robert Pattinson: I guess it all depends
on how much you like going around killing
people. [Laughs] I’m not sure that being goodlooking
has anything to do with it, except vampires
have always been attractive, haven’t they?
CC: Your Twilight character, Edward, is different
from standard cinematic vampires. I’m
wondering if you looked over the blood-sucking
canon for inspiration.
RP: You’re right, there’s very little about
Twilight that’s really vampire-ish. It’s about
vampires, I guess, but they’re not the same
vampires you’re used to seeing in other
movies. I found myself looking to real iconic
figures and characters, those timeless, attractive
figures, for inspiration: James Dean,
Jack Nicholson, that old French film
Breathless. Edward’s an outsider, mysterious,
a bad boy, all the things girls find attractive.
I wanted to find the qualities that made
those actors and those performances so
appealing, so charismatic. I can’t say I modeled
the performance on anything or anyone,
but I was looking for charisma and
chemistry and trying to figure out what’s
worked before in the movies.
CC: You’re an accomplished musician. You actually
have a couple of your songs in Twilight.
RP: It’s very bizarre. The director, Catherine
Hardwicke, was listening to one of my CDs, I
guess, and when she showed me an early cut
of the film I realized she had used one of my
songs in the movie. Not in the end credits,
but in a key moment in the movie. It all
matched perfectly—the music, the lyrics,
the scene. I had no idea.
CC:Hardwicke, incidentally, says you have these
“long, beautiful vampire fingers.”
RP: I think what she meant is: I have very
weird hands. There’s a scene in the film where
my character plays the piano, and I actually
had to learn it myself because they couldn’t
find a hand double that was convincing
enough to match my weird fingers.
CC: Are you a lucky guy?
RP: I think I am. I remember when I was
younger I used to write in my diary: I want
my luck to be spread. Never give me anything
too lucky all at once. I’ll take a little luck now
and then, but spread it for 70 years. Now that
all of this is happening, I’m sure the rest of
my life will be ruined. [Laughs] C
J. Rentilly is a Los Angeles–based journalist
who writes about film, music and literature.
Beginning March 21, Costco is offering
the Twilight 2-disc Special Edition DVD
as well as the Exclusive Ultimate Fan Gift
Set.
