Robert Pattinson has admitted he found the premise behind the Twilight film series “weird” and said the way the public responded to it was “strange”.
The actor, 33, starred as the undead Edward Cullen in the saga of romance and vampires, based on the young adult book series by US author Stephenie Meyer.
He said he took the part that made him a star because he thought the first film sounded “very indie” and because he liked director Catherine Hardwicke’s “hardcore” style of film-making.
He made the comments during a conversation with Jennifer Lopez for Variety magazine’s Actors on Actors series.
He said: “I mean with Twilight, it wasn’t really an established thing. To me, Catherine Hardwicke, who directed it, had done Thirteen and Lords Of Dogtown.
“They were little movies, and they were kind of hardcore. Kristen (Stewart) was in stuff as well, she’d been in Into The Wild and some other things. And it was very indie.”
Lopez asked whether he expected Twilight to be like The Lost Boys, the 1987 American horror film starring Jason Patric and Corey Haim.
He said: “Exactly. I mean it’s a weird story, Twilight. It’s strange how people responded.
“I guess the books, they are very romantic, but at the same time, it’s not like The Notebook romantic.
“Twilight is about this guy who finds the one girl he wants to be with, and also wants to eat her. Well, not eat — drink her blood or whatever.
“I thought it was a strange story. Even the way I promoted it, I was very open about how strange I thought it was when I was doing it.
“Then afterward, I didn’t make a conscious decision at all to do smaller things. I’ve just kept doing what I wanted to do in the first place.”
Pattinson, who is starring as the title character in the upcoming Batman film, also said he had been “very focused” on securing the part of the masked hero.
He joins a cast including Andy Serkis as loyal butler Alfred, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman and Paul Dano as supervillain The Riddler.
Read the full Variety interview online.