Robert Pattinson re-evaluated career when he ran out of work

Robert Pattinson re-evaluated the viability of his career in quirky independent movies when he started 2019 without a job.

The British actor found fame with mainstream movies such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the Twilight franchise before taking the indie route, with him starring in a range of niche films such as Good Time, High Life, and The Lighthouse.

And although he received critical acclaim for his performances in these projects, Pattinson realised in early 2019 that they weren’t giving him commercial appeal because not enough mainstream audiences were watching them.

“I started the beginning of last year with no job. And I was calling my agent and just being like—I had gotten good reviews in stuff—and I was like, ‘What the f**k? I thought this was a pretty good year, and I’m f**king starting the year like I’ve just done a pile of trash,’” he recalled to GQ magazine.

His agent explained that he wasn’t “on the list” for blockbuster films because "everyone thinks you don’t want to do any of this stuff”.

That conversation made him recognise he wanted to make those types of films too, to help give his career more stability.

“Just something which you could kind of rely on a little bit more,” the 34-year-old sighed. “The problem which I was finding was, however much I loved the movies I was doing, no one sees them. And so, it’s kind of this frightening thing, ‘cause I don’t know how viable this is for a career.… I don’t know how many people there actually are in the industry who are willing to back you without any commercial viability whatsoever.”

Soon after he made it known he was interested in studio projects, Pattinson was hired by Christopher Nolan to star alongside John David Washington in Tenet, and while he was making that film, he was offered the lead in Matt Reeves’s The Batman.