On 'Remember Me' - "I liked the idea of this film. But I also thought that it was a fairly good career step. It doesn't alienate the audience of the image that I have. It's not a ultra-violent or ultra-depressing movie. It's a simple. old-fashioned story, which is not asking too much from the audience. I thought that was quite good because its my first big movie outside of the Twilight stuff. I'm doing a David Cronenberg movie next. Cosmopolis, with Juliette Binoche and Paul Giamatti, which is a pretty big step for me. After that I'm hoping to be producing something. I'm not entirely sure yet."
What drew him to drama, the movies. "I guess it was a variety of things... the pretty girls?" he grins. "There was a theater company around the corner from my house ( in Barnes, London). I guess it was something that I always wanted to do, but I thought that it was also kind of pretentious. I didnt' mind the kids that were acting in school, but I wanted to do it secretly outside of school. I just liked the environment. I worked backstage for about three years, and just watched everything. Then I did a couple of plays, then I got an agent from one of those plays. Then my first audition was for 'Troy' - I was auditioning to play Brad Pitt's cousin. I was like "What? I'm gonna play Brad Pitt's cousin?" That was the first time that I'd ever done anything ,so that excitement held for something like six months, then I did 'Vanity Fair' with Reese."
" After Vanity Fair, I went to South Africa (for Curse of the Ring) for three months, which for a 17-year-old was pretty great. You get an apartment, you get paid. Its fun, I thought. 'Okay, I'm an actor now.'"
Today, he's more pragmatic. "I enjoyed them then, but I don't now. If anything I wish that I could stay in a shitty hotel and be a part of everything. I'm always separated from the crew now. I have to be in some secure place and I'm not able to hang out with anyone. That is the best of part of doing movies, too, where everyone is so tight for three months so when you leave you've actually created a relationship with people. Right now, I'm doing things where I don't even know people's names. Its very frustrating but I have to figure out ways to live my life the way I want to live it. It just takes a while, and its not like there's any map or guide for this life of mine.
"Most actors I see try to encourage it (a fan base) because they think that's what's gonna give them a long lasting career. I just don't think that is the case. The more that you reveal of yourself, the more you oversaturate your image, and the less interesting that people find you. If you're just an empty shell with your face stuck on everything, its cool, but the hysteria can only last so long. Mystery lasts a lot longer yet the industry is devoted to tearing every shred of mystery left in any kind of celebrity apart, so you have to work to maintain anything. In my case, I just hide. I'm in stand-by mode until I actually do something. If I'm not working I just sit around. I try to watch a film but my attention span is so short that I'm bored after 20 minutes. I used to play this game in iPhone, 'Fall down' - its the most ridiculous thing which involves absolutely no brain effort whatsoever and I'd sit and sometimes play it for 16 hours. I get obsessed with things in short bursts. Like in the beginning of the last Twilight movie, I was working out a lot because I had to take my shirt off all the time. So I was obsessed of going to the gym all the time and cycling everywhere, but as soon as I finished. I just stopped dead. And I haven't gone to the gym since.
He deleted his personal photos. "I actually managed to delete every single photo that I took on my phone from the beginning of Twilight until now, which was my only record of my life.
How it happened? "What can I say, I was incredible bored, so I tried to update my iPhone and wiped everything out."
