Back in 2009, Robert Pattinson was one of the biggest heartthrobs on the face of the planet — and unfortunately, it’s unsurprising that he attracted some very, very passionate fans after his leading performance as Edward Cullen in the 2008 supernatural young adult romance “Twilight.” In an interview that year with the now-defunct Créme Magazine (reported by England’s Press Association and subsequently by Today), Pattinson revealed that, while he was working on a project, he ended up giving in to a fan’s demands … sort of.
“I had a stalker while filming a movie in Spain last year,” Pattinson recalled. “She stood outside of my apartment every day for weeks — all day every day. I was so bored and lonely that I went out and had dinner with her.” Okay, this sounds like it was probably pretty wonderful for the fan, so how exactly did Pattinson end up convincing her to stop being interested in him at all? Apparently, it was simple: “I just complained about everything in my life and she never came back,” Pattinson continued. “People get bored of me in, like, two minutes.”
It seems important to note that, as of this writing, Pattinson has been in a relationship with actress and musician Suki Waterhouse since 2018; they confirmed their engagement in 2023, and in the spring of 2024, the two welcomed a daughter, which is to say that not all people get bored of him “in, like, two minutes.” Still, this is a pretty insane and funny way to handle a stalker who’s doing an objectively invasive thing (standing outside of your home at all hours), and to be fair to Pattinson, the mania over “Twilight” was intense.
The Twilight boom made Robert Pattinson into a global superstar
Before “Twilight,” Robert Pattinson was best known for playing the short-lived role of Hufflepuff and Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory in the fourth “Harry Potter” movie, subtitled “Goblet of Fire” — but because Cedric’s death literally serves as the climax to this particular installment, he was never destined to appear in any “Potter” movies beyond that. After “Twilight,” Pattinson was thrust firmly into the spotlight thanks to the fact that his role in that franchise, Edward Cullen, is designed to be a swoonworthy romantic male lead for whom girls around the world would pine, just like his love interest Bella Swan (played on-screen by Kristen Stewart).
Across four movies — like “Harry Potter,” the “Twilight Saga” split its final book into two parts and gave “Breaking Dawn” two drawn-out films — Pattinson plays Edward, a brooding vampire who’s well over a century old by the time he meets actual teenager Bella (while Edward is extremely old, he stopped aging at 17 years old, so he’s basically an eternal teenager). Despite Edward’s hesitance, he and Bella fall in love and become a couple — and he introduces her to his all-vampire family, who must control themselves so as not to, you know, kill her — and despite a brief split in the second installment “New Moon,” they eventually get married and immediately spawn a half-vampire, half-human baby that almost kills Bella during childbirth. (Tale as old as time, right?) The “Twilight” movies are a mixed bag, albeit campy and fun … and both Stewart and Pattinson are serviceable in them. It’s what Pattinson did next that’s really exciting.
After Twilight, Robert Pattinson branched out and picked weird, fascinating, and largely successful projects
Frankly, it’s astounding and impressive that Robert Pattinson, who went right from a “Harry Potter” movie into a soapy young adult franchise, became one of Hollywood’s most audacious, ambitious, and in-demand actors. (So, for that matter, did Kristen Stewart. Good for both of them!) After branching out with offbeat director David Cronenberg for the 2014 film “Maps to the Stars,” Pattinson went on to work with auteurs like the Safdie brothers (on 2017’s “Good Time”) and Robert Eggers (on 2019’s “The Lighthouse,” where he appears alongside Willem Dafoe in a two-hander). His biggest post-“Twilight” projects, though, are 2020’s time-bending action thriller “Tenet” — directed by Christopher Nolan — and Pattinson’s titular role in Matt Reeves’ 2022 reboot “The Batman,” where the former teen vampire takes up the mantle of Gotham’s Caped Crusader.
Still, Pattinson’s most interesting roles remain his strangest ones, like his absolutely bravura vocal performance in the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s stunningly personal film “The Boy and the Heron” (which released in 2024), his turn as a sinister Southern preacher in “The Devil All the Time” (in 2020), and his literally layered performance as multiples of himself in Bong Joon-ho’s 2025 “Parasite” follow-up “Mickey 17.” Pattinson isn’t exactly a teen heartthrob anymore, but his strangest performative impulses — like going on a date with a fan only to bore her — are still going strong, and we’re all luckier for it.