The Twilight franchise starring Robert Pattinson has earned over $3 billion dollars, yet the film studio was reluctant to cast the British actor as vampire Edward Cullen because at the time they thought he was not sexy enough.
Catherine Hardwicke directed the original film, which was released in 2008, and she recalled that Pattinson did seem like he was right for the role of the 108-year-old vampire who appeared to be seventeen.
“When he came over to my house, he had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time,” the filmmaker, 68, said Monday, November 20 on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast.
Hardwicke shot an audition of Pattinson with Kristen Stewart, who was already cast as the female lead, Bella Swan. When she viewed the footage, she had reservations about their chemistry, asking herself, “Does it really translate [to the screen]?”
After she sent the audition to the film studio, Summit Entertainment, Pattinson met the executives and they were not sold on him.
“They called me back and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones? We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’”
Hardwicke continued that she had to convince the execs that Pattinson was the man for the role after he failed to impress them in person.
“They didn’t believe it at first. He walked over there with a stained shirt,” she said. “It was Rob.”
Pattinson was one of four actors who were in the final running to be cast as Cullen, along with Jackson Rathbone, Ben Barnes and Shiloh Fernandez. Eventually, he was selected, and Rathbone was featured in the film in the role of Cullen family member Jasper Hale.
Like Pattinson he also appeared in the four sequels: The Twilight Saga: New Moon in 2009, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in 2010, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 in 2011 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 in 2012
Pattinson previously told W Magazine that he auditioned for Twilight after he lost a role in another film.
“I flew out to L.A. to actually audition for something else, which I was told was mine to take, just on a plate. And I went in and completely ruined the audition. And then the next day was the Twilight audition,” he said in September 2017. “I think I was at such a kind of nothing-to-lose state, it was quite easy for me to do.”
Pattinson also admitted that he was not prepared to portray Cullen.
“I never really quite knew how to play a vampire, though. I sort of just was a pale, pale person,” he said and added that he was not comfortable with the abnormal plot.
“When we first signed up for it, if it hadn’t been so successful I think people would have thought it was really weird. It’s a really weird story,” Pattinson remembered. “But once it becomes mainstream, it’s difficult for people to see how strange a story is.”
