The Twilight series may have made Robert Pattinson a household name, but it almost never came to be—studio executives apparently didn't think he was hot enough to play Jacob.
That's according to the first film's director, Catherine Hardwicke, who revealed how she had to fight for Pattinson in a recent interview on Entertainment Weekly's podcast "Watchalong."
At the time, Pattinson was just a young dude hanging out in bars, and had the looks and body to prove it. But Hardwicke saw something in him that made her want to do whatever she could to keep him.
TWILIGHT with Catherine Hardwicke I Watchalongyoutu.be
Of the process of casting Pattinson, she told EW:
“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."
But she was taken with him, and filmed some audition footage with lead actress Kristen Stewart. What she found on-camera was that he 100% fit the part. Kind of.
Hardwicke said:
“I thought ‘it works not just in person, but it works on screen.’ I had to be sure.
"Of course in person I just got carried away, but you have to be sure — does it really translate [to the screen]?”
When she sent it to Summit Entertainment, they weren't convinced.
“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.’
But they didn’t believe it at first. He walked over there with a stained shirt."
But she won them over and the rest, as they say, is history.
Though he tends to choose smaller projects nowadays with filmmakers like the Safdie brothers and Claire Denis, he's still the biggest star in the world as far as Twilight fans are concerned.
And the recent announcement that Pattinson and wife Suki Waterhouse are expecting showed the fervor for him hasn't died down a bit since the Twilight days.
Not bad for someone who was just a schlub from the pub back in the day.
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