Culture

Robert Pattinson Was High On Valium During His ‘Twilight’ Audition

He credits the pharmaceutical for snagging him the role.

As Robert Pattinson gears up his press tour for Batman, it’s always nice to revisit his humble beginnings as the Twilight franchise immortal, tortured soul Edward Cullen. Pattinson recently revealed some incredible facts surrounding his time as the vampire — including how he was high on Valium during his audition to how he was almost fired from the role. See all the Twilight secrets Pattinson shared, ahead.

He used to live on his agent’s couch

When Pattinson was 21 years old, he was living on his agent’s couch, which is where he woke up the morning of his Twilight audition. He says he had recently developed an “absolute terror” of auditions.

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He took a Valium before his Twilight audition

He emailed his agent from the living room and told her he was “freaking out,” didn’t want to go to the audition, to which she responded, “Well, find Valium in my bathroom.”

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The experience was a hit

“I remember feeling so glorious in the back of the taxi with the window open and just being like, ‘Wow, this is what I’ve been missing.’” Thank you, Valium for your crucial role in the creation of the mess that is Twilight.

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He says taking the Valium helped him get the role

“I think I had this quite spacey, detached kind of thing in the audition, which must have kind of worked for the character,” he told GQ.

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Pattinson wanted make Edward more emo

“I was 21 and kind of wanted to make it as arty as possible and so I was kind of we had this strange tension where the studio was kind of scared to make things a little bit too emo and stuff,” he said. “I thought that was the only way to play it. It just seems so ridiculous talking about it now because I spent so much time just infuriated.”

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He was wary of playing the role light-hearted

“I also think that if I tried to play it lighthearted, the way I would do it would end up looking so wrong that I’d probably end up looking more like a psychopath,” Pattinson said. He’s not wrong!

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He almost got fired

Pattinson says he was shooting the scene where Edward introduces Bella to his family when his agent and manager made a surprise visit to set.“They were like, Okay whatever you’re doing right now — after lunch, just do the opposite or you’ll be fired by the end of the day’ and I was like, ‘Okay!’ and so that was the only thing that got me to sort of smile a little bit.”

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There was a petition to have him not be cast

Pattinson says nothing in his life changed much until a week before Twilight was released. So when there was a petition to have him not cast, “It felt so abstract. I just didn’t really care,” he said.

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Watch the full video here.

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