“I’ve always been fascinated by someone who tells me, ‘I like your choices in that scene,’ because I don’t even know what the options are,” Pattinson says, giggling. “I feel like you have a thick membrane of consciousness and you’re digging inside yourself, trying to find one little idea and hope it works. It’s an all-consuming terror and it has been there from the start. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just tossing a coin, relying entirely on luck.”

And, yes, this is ridiculous, and Pattinson, 33, knows that full well. But in recalling his transition from playing the vampire romantic Edward Cullen in the “Twilight” franchise to making strange, art house movies that people might stumble across at 2 in the morning and think, “What in the name of God is going on here?,” Pattinson can peg the pivotal moment.

“It’s when David [Cronenberg] called me for ‘Cosmopolis,’” Pattinson says, referring to the 2012 movie in which he played a Wall Street titan crawling across Manhattan in a limo. Before that, all his auditions were for mainstream movies. “I didn’t know you could go after the people you wanted to work with. And that’s what I’ve done the last eight movies.”
That includes “The Batman.” Pattinson read about Reeves making a noir “Batman” movie and thought, “I haven’t done a big thing for ages. This is the one I want.” (His agents were shocked.) He badgered Reeves, met with him and producer Dylan Clark a number of times and finally secured an audition. He spent three weeks preparing for his audition scene only to have all his work cast aside once he put on the Batsuit.

“The lesson I always learn is don’t ever bother preparing for anything because it’s pointless,” Pattinson says. “Every time I’ve heavily prepared a scene, I go in and they’ll say something like, ‘Oh, by the way, it’s zero gravity.’ Or: ‘It’s raining.’” And I’m like, ‘But I really wanted to play it this way! I’ve been thinking about it every waking minute!’ It never works!”

Again, Pattinson finds all this extremely amusing and so you do too because it’s impossible not to get caught up in his casual, good-natured and clear-eyed view of acting and stardom. Two years ago for a magazine cover profile, he was asked to do a video in which he’d interview his hair. He was furious. Now he’d probably do it. But at the time, it seemed too obvious.

“And I never want to do something for an audience … ever,” Pattinson says. “I think it’s literally disgusting.” He bursts out laughing at the force of his disdain.

“It’s just so disrespectful of people. ‘I made this for you,’ he continues, on a roll. “You don’t know me. How can you know what I want? And it also indoctrinates the audience into thinking that they somehow are special because someone said, ‘I made it for you.’ They didn’t make it for you. They made it for your money.
“Everybody should be making [things] for themselves. If no one likes it, you just have to do it more. And put it out more places. And eventually someone will like it. It has to work eventually. I call it the [Charles] Bukowski method.”

UHQ thanks to Ani