The Rover provides the keys to Robert Pattinson ditching his teen-idol chains

Sep 17, 2014 06:00 am

Fighting through hordes of screaming girls, dodging paparazzi, seeing your face plastered everywhere, only being offered rom-coms, and sappy melodramas opposite beautiful actresses... oh, the perils of a teen heart-throb.

It may seem like such issues are superficial, but making the transition from teen idol to respected actor is no easy feat.

How do you convince moviegoers and directors that you are more than a pretty one-trick pony?

Robert Pattinson, blessed with those looks and that hair, is best remembered as the sparkly vegetarian bloodsucker Edward Cullen in global young-adult phenomenon The Twilight Saga.

He has tried several times to leave the idol image behind, without much success.

But the 28-year-old is seeing light at the end of the tunnel with new film The Rover.

Jeffrey Wright (left) and Robert Pattinson in The Batman.

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Critics, who once had a good time hating the Brit actor, are singing a new tune with many calling the movie Pattinson's redefining moment.

Perhaps taking a leaf from Brad Pitt's book, he gets dirty in director David Michod's gritty dystopian road movie, opening here tomorrow.

Set in the Australian outback in an unspecified near future, The Rover stars Guy Pearce as Eric, an angry ex-soldier who sets out to track down the gang who stole his only possession - his car - after a botched robbery.

Pattinson plays Rey, a slow-witted young man, left behind after the heist. Eric and Rey forge an uneasy alliance as they trek across a devastated landscape together.

So how did Pattinson finally unshackle himself from the teen idol label to become a critic's choice actor?

1 Kept on working

Perseverance is a virtue that Pattinson has embraced since breaking out with Twilight in 2008. A quick look on IMDb shows the actor never stopped working during and after his Twilight days.

There were the romances, modern and period, Remember Me (2010) and Water For Elephants (2011). Both played to his dreamboat persona, and did not do much damage at the box office.

In 2012, he tried to sweep away his teen idol persona by playing sleazebags in Bel Ami and David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis.

But then came the concluding episode of The Twilight Saga, which wiped out whatever Pattinson had tried to do.

He lamented to Shortlist: "Every single time, a Twilight (movie) comes out and inevitably eclipses whatever I've done in the meantime."

The Rover is officially his first post-Twilight movie.

2 Stuck to his guns

Staying away from romance and high-profile movies seems to have worked well for Pattinson, whose grungier and more adult roles are markedly different from being Edward.

He auditioned hard for The Rover as it was a role that appealed to him and one that would "shock people".

"It's kind of fun," he told The Guardian.

"Because people have preconceived ideas about you, and sometimes it affords you the opportunity to shock people more."

In another interview with Yahoo! UK, he said that it worked in his favour that he never gets offers for blockbusters.

"I genuinely choose my roles because they're the only ones I get offered. I just happened to get outre (unusual) jobs."

3 Worked with choice film-makers

Like Leonardo DiCaprio, who left behind his Titanic days by hooking up with Martin Scorsese, Pattinson found a mate in Cronenberg.

His second Cronenberg film, Maps To The Stars, received favourable reviews when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The drama, which sees Pattinson playing a limo driver, opens here on Nov 20.

He has also completed two dramas - Werner Herzog's Queen Of The Desert and Anton Corbijn's Life. It was also reported that Spring Breakers' Harmony Korine is in the midst of writing a gangster thriller for Pattinson.

Through these projects, the Brit also shows his willingness to play second fiddle, drawing attention away from himself. He stars alongside James Franco and Nicole Kidman in Queen, and rising star Dane DeHaan, who plays James Dean, in Life.

Pattinson is about to start work on Idol's Eye, where he'll play a "small-time crook" opposite Robert De Niro.

4 Changed his look

Countless websites have dedicated themselves to following the evolution of Pattinson's "glorious mane", which was a big draw for Twihards.

Pattinson deliberately shaved the locks off right after Twilight, much like Emma Watson post-Harry Potter.

"Whenever you have your head shaved, less people come up to you and ask for pictures," he joked to Yahoo! UK.

5 Accepted his idol status

Pattinson seems to acknowledge the power that comes with being named "the most handsome man in the world" by Vanity Fair, and one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time.

As much as he would like to shake off the Twihards, he probably knows he would not be who he is without their fervent presence.

At the Los Angeles premiere of The Rover, he even reached out to Twihards, telling HollywoodLife.com that he "never knows how people are going to react to it" but he "hopes the Twilight fans will like it".

Moving on

Robert Pattinson is looking forward to life after Twilight.

Here, he talks about learning to take photographs, being a nomad, writing music and his interest in politics.

HE'S ENJOYING A GYPSY LIFESTYLE

"I've always kind of liked it: Three months and then you can just move on. You don't have any responsibility.

"I had a house for a bit and then I sold it off. You're never there and it's just a bit of a hassle."

HE'S WRITING MUSIC AGAIN

"I just started again recently. I don't really write songs in a conventional way. I don't write lyrics separately, it's quite instinctive.

"I wouldn't mind doing (movie) scores, but I'm quite sensitive to criticism and I've got a lot of that from one aspect of my life already. I don't really want anyone's opinion on it."

HE'S LEARNING HOW TO TAKE PHOTOS

"It's interesting doing Life, a movie about photography, with Anton Corbijn, who's a master photographer. He taught me how to take photos - a little bit - with an old Leica. They're not very good.

"I thought they were all going to be absolutely amazing. I did like 25 rolls of film, and after about four rolls, I hadn't even realised that you need to pull the lens out - so they're all blank!"

HE'S APOLITICAL, BUT ENJOYS THE GAME

"I thought of going to university to do politics. I still kind of want to, but American politics. I'm not really interested in English politics.

"I didn't want to be a politician. I'm quite apolitical, weirdly. I wanted to work in the mechanics of it. I like speech writing. I just like the game."

HE'S AT A HAPPY PLACE

"I'm really happy the two films (The Rover and Maps To The Stars) got into Cannes. It's exactly what I wanted. It's nice just being able to work with people I've wanted to work with for years and years.

"You start to realise there's a finite amount of time to get stuff done and there's a lot of different things that I want to achieve. My job is my hobby."