Cavan Kilbey from Muse. (UK) wrote an article entitled “Atypical Performance: Reinventing Actors” and has this interesting comment about Robert Pattinson:
Aside from comedians, the other class of actor that is not usually expected to deliver a serious performance is the child star. There is a snooty assumption from most audiences that once you’ve been in something akin to Twilight, you’ll mostly star in complete dross for the rest of your career, but that isn’t always the case. Most of these performers go on to be in interesting projects that capitalise on and subvert their popular image; Daniel Radcliffe alone has been in such a weird range of films that his career deserves its own thesis. The one who has arguably succeeded most from this trend has been Robert Pattinson, who became a household name thanks to his turn as Twilight’s Edward Cullen, but is now lauded as a star of the arthouse scene. You can pick any number of films that feature him ‘playing against type’, including 2017’s Good Time, but the one that sticks out the most is Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse from 2019. Pattinson’s breakout performance as Cullen was often quiet and reserved, resulting in his typecasting as the awkward but well-meaning love interest in films like Water for Elephants, or as the snarky upper class lead in Cosmopolis. But The Lighthouse allows Pattinson to just let it all out and play a character full of guilt, anger, and frustration; he’s a volatile individual who beats up seagulls and tries to gain power over the dominant lighthouse keeper played by Willem Dafoe. Pattinson captures the Promethean struggle perfectly with the way he slowly bottles up rage across the opening acts of the film before exploding in the final third as he buries his friend alive and realises that the knowledge he’s been seeking the entire film has amounted to nothing.
With the exception of Garbo, none of the actors discussed have received Academy nominations for these roles and are seldom talked about in relation to their oeuvre, aside from Pattinson who currently enjoys a career revitalisation and has managed to stop himself from being typecast as Edward Cullen-type romantic leads.
