Robert Pattinson talks his career with Fresh Air

Terry Gross from Fresh Air spoke with Rob about The Lighthouse, Rob’s forever changing accents, preparing for The Batman and more (including hearing Honeybun). Here’s an extract from the transcript. Sit back and listen to Rob for over 30 mins.

British actor Robert Pattinson can’t tell you how many times people have said to him: “Hey man … you know what you’d be great at playing? An English prince.”

But that’s not really his thing.

“I think when you first start, if you’re tall and English and have kind of floppy hair, in England that is the box that you’re put in,” he says. “But I like movies because of Pacino, basically. I didn’t grow up watching period dramas and being like, ‘That’s what I want to do!’ ”

…

On something filmmaker David Cronenberg told him at Cannes that stuck with him

I’d never been to Cannes before … and I was very nervous, and I said, “How do you think it’s going to go tomorrow?” And David [said], “I’m fully expecting a significant number of walkouts.” It absolutely terrified me when I first heard it … but as soon as I saw his pleasure in thinking that there were going to be walkouts, it really made a big effect on me. …
If you’re chasing after people, getting them to like you, you’re always going to be unsatisfied. Whereas, if you team up with people who throw caution to the wind about their work and are entirely unconcerned … they’re going to make exactly the movie that they want to make.