Every young girl’s fantasy vampire, the actor has to keep himself hidden since the phenomenal success of the Twilight books and film
The TimesOnLine - On a balmy autumn day in Vancouver, a young man is longing for a walk outside in the sunshine, and deciding against it. Far easier for him to stay in his hotel room, cocooned in five-star luxury with a mobile phone that has run out of charge, safe at least from the girls chanting his name outside. Robert Pattinson, 23 and from Barnes in southwest London, ought still to be one of Hollywood’s beautiful dreamers, moving up the ranks of movie acting, enjoying his American adventure, his guitar, his good looks. Instead he lives in danger of being trampled in a stampede of teen love.
Does the poor boy, who still calls London home, feel he has to hide? “I tend to stay in the hotel because it’s highly publicised where I’m staying all the time. There’s always a bunch of people outside. I can’t really be in LA now at all. It’s not that the fans are threatening, but the paparazzi follow me all night.” This hounding can evoke an absurd sympathy, considering the kid’s fortune and prospects. But then he brightens, telling me he was buying a guitar the other day and had to spell his name 12 times, and the guy still didn’t twig. “I loved that. It was my fault — I wasn’t speaking loud enough.”
Is he embarrassed to have millions of girls in love with him? “The only time it’s embarrassing is when you do a photoshoot and people try to force you to look clean-cut,” he says, “when they use pictures where you’re smiling sweetly and having your hair brushed, because that’s not what you want to be known for. “I don’t really know why the girls love the movie so much. The whole series has become a bit of a cult. People like being part of the club. They’re obsessed. The fan fiction is amazing: I’ve been sent whole novels featuring me as myself, in the Twilight world, with Edward in it as well.”
Does the poor boy, who still calls London home, feel he has to hide? “I tend to stay in the hotel because it’s highly publicised where I’m staying all the time. There’s always a bunch of people outside. I can’t really be in LA now at all. It’s not that the fans are threatening, but the paparazzi follow me all night.” This hounding can evoke an absurd sympathy, considering the kid’s fortune and prospects. But then he brightens, telling me he was buying a guitar the other day and had to spell his name 12 times, and the guy still didn’t twig. “I loved that. It was my fault — I wasn’t speaking loud enough.”
Is he embarrassed to have millions of girls in love with him? “The only time it’s embarrassing is when you do a photoshoot and people try to force you to look clean-cut,” he says, “when they use pictures where you’re smiling sweetly and having your hair brushed, because that’s not what you want to be known for. “I don’t really know why the girls love the movie so much. The whole series has become a bit of a cult. People like being part of the club. They’re obsessed. The fan fiction is amazing: I’ve been sent whole novels featuring me as myself, in the Twilight world, with Edward in it as well.”
Click here to read the full article. It is long but a good one.
