It’s been three years since Bella and Edward had their swan song and the Twilight saga wrapped up for good. (Or at least, for now.) That means Robert Pattinson—whose wolfish good looks and insane popularity made him a perennial paparazzi target—can finally go to the grocery store again. The actor says that Twilight made him a bit of a recluse and drove him “crazy.”
“I didn’t go into a supermarket for about six years,” he said in a recent interview with the British magazine NME. ”But now I can go in and chat to the guy who’s working there about his kids, or where he’s going on holiday, and not be thinking, ‘Is he gonna sell me out?’ I just don’t have to think about that stuff anymore.”
But while Pattinson may have side-stepped the intensive glare of superstardom, he’s still sometimes guilty of checking in on what people think of him. Like Jennifer Lawrence—another constant paparazzi target—Pattinson admits to occasionally Googling himself. “I go through periods where I don’t do it at all and feel glorious! Then I’ll fall back into this pit,” he says. “It really does affect you, and it all comes from some moron sitting on a comment board. It’s always that person who’s needling away at you, who you either want to destroy, or convince them to love you.”
Thought Pattinson’s time on Twilight has certainly afforded him many career opportunities, the actor has never been shy about not connecting personally with the franchise. In fact, he says he looks back on that entire phase of his life as if it happened to someone else. “I was watching the MTV VMAs the other day and thinking how bizarre it was that I ever did that.” Pattinson says. “I remember doing those awards and saying the dumbest stuff. And I was hungover for most of it.”
Pattinson also offered up an explanation for why, like his former co-star and girlfriend Kristen Stewart, he sometimes comes across as standoffish in interviews. “I’m the most uncomfortable person in the world. It’s taken me a really long time to find out what my voice is, or even if I had the right to say anything at all. . . . A lot of people, when they’re really young, tend to be like, ’I’ve got something to say and I want everyone to hear it!’” he also said. “But I‘ve never wanted anyone to hear what I’m saying, because it's probably stupid.” Millions of devoted fans would probably disagree.
