Robert Pattinson’s best performances, from blockbuster to bizarre
The strangest A-list career around
Just arriving in cinemas, The Drama sees two of Hollywood’s most bankable, attractive young stars (Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) co-starring in a romantic comedy about a happily engaged couple who encounter a relationship-testing revelation.
All of which would sound like your typical blandly forgettable Sunday evening ‘stream it’ fare, if not for the RPattz factor.
The British actor might have received the biggest of big breaks playing the vampiric hunk Edward Cullen in the squillion-dollar Twilight series, but his career ever since has been anything but by the book.
Pattinson has carved out a unique niche for himself in the industry, taking left turns at every opportunity and leaving a trail of idiosyncratic yet deeply human performances in his low-key wake.
If there’s ever been a star who so wilfully turned their back on Hollywood movie star status, and yet who has made such a success of things nonetheless, we can’t think of them. He’s even managed to come full circle, starring in big-budget superhero franchises on his own weirdo terms.
As a tribute to Pattinson’s one-of-a-kind career, we thought we’d pick out some of his defining roles following those early star-making turns. We’d be tempted to proffer it as a road map to a long and fulfilling acting career for any aspiring star if it didn’t involve treading such a confoundingly crooked path.
8. The Rover
Following just two years on from the conclusion of the Twilight saga, The Rover was the very definition of running in the opposite direction. Here Pattinson plays the supporting role in a low-budget Australian indie thriller.
His Reynolds is a slow-brained, badly injured lowlife who spends much of the film limping around as a beaten-down captive of Guy Pearce’s vengeful anti-hero. Somehow, Pattinson evokes a sense of sympathy in this ostensibly unredeemable figure. As such, The Rover serves as an early sign of things to come from the star following his big break.
7. Tenet
Tenet isn’t the most beloved of Christopher Nolan’s movies. Some people would even view this convoluted thriller as the British director’s first and only misfire to date. But in this cold, high-concept slice of glossy sci-fi, where even The Protagonist himself doesn’t get a name, Pattinson’s plummy agent Neil provides a vital dash of humanity and humour.
The British actor took his usual circuitous approach to what seems to have been a barely sketched-out character, modelling his louche mannerisms after the late political journalist Christopher Hitchens.
6. The King
Proving that he isn’t all about cool glances and microscopic facial tics, Pattinson shows us that he can still go full ham when he wants to in The King.
The star’s outrageously fromage-scented French accent and flowing blonde locks threaten to steal the show from Timothy Chalomet in the title role, despite occupying the screen for a fraction of the time. Pattinson brings an air of aristocratic hauteur to every scene he’s in. You’ll wish there were more of them.
5. The Batman
There were genuine worries among comic book obsessives and film fans alike when Pattinson was cast as the Caped Crusader. Would he have the requisite physical presence to play the world’s most popular superhero? Would he convince as an even darker knight than the one we saw in the Nolan trilogy? We needn’t have worried.
While we could debate the merits of the final movie, Pattinson’s Batman is a properly fresh take, accentuating a sense of brainy diligence and forlorn dutifulness over the usual vengeful face-punching – though he acquits himself well in the action scenes too.
4. The Lighthouse
Pattinson’s exaggerated jaw line and haunted eyes are put to excellent use in Robert Eggers’s unsettling horror-drama. The former teen heartthrob entirely convinces as a put-upon 19th-century lighthouse keeper’s assistant, sent slowly mad by Willem Defoe’s uncouth boss and the intense isolation of his job.
Shot here in grainy black and white, and leaning on Pattinson’s awkward physicality far more than any sustained dialogue, he almost comes across as an early silent movie star. It’s the kind of unshowy, nuanced performance that stands Pattinson apart from other actors in his generation.
3. Mickey 17
Really, there was no other actor to play the lead role in Bong Joon Ho’s sharply satirical sci-fi movie. Pattinson wholly convinces as Mickey Barnes, a put-upon member of the underclass in a future corporate dystopia, who finds himself working off a debt by turning himself into a human lab rat and all-around skivvy in a distant colony.
As each of his cloned forms meets a grisly end, an administrative error and a blossoming relationship provoke an existential crisis – and the potential for revolution. It’s quite the juggling act, but Pattinson keeps all of the balls in the air.
2. High Life
Acclaimed French director Claire Denis chose Pattinson to play the lead role in her first English-language movie, which speaks volumes to the Brit’s talent. The film itself is a uniquely elliptical combination of sex and sci-fi, in which Pattinson’s prisoner resists participation in the carnal experiments of Juliette Binoche’s scientist.
Pattinson carries the weight of this most uncomfortable of films on his shoulders with few words and yet plenty of emotional heft, which is what we’ve fast come to expect from the star.
1. Good Time
The Safdie brothers tell sweat-soaked stories about desperate, flawed men making increasingly calamitous decisions. Among their impressively grubby list of panicked losers, Good Time’s Constantine "Connie" Nikas might just be the most wretched, and yet somehow he turns out to be among the most sympathetic.
A large part of that comes down to Pattinson’s lead performance, playing the world’s most dim-witted bank robber with a believably schlubby vulnerability. Each bungled move along his chaotic path will leave you angry and reproachful, and yet somehow you’ll be willing him to come out the other end.
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