For all Buffy’s efforts, vampires have been sinking their teeth ever deeper into Generation W’s pop culture. To a spate of hugely profitable books and HBO’s True Blood, add this month’s Twilight, a movie based on Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster saga, which has sold millions of copies in the U.S. alone. As starlet Kristen Stewart plays the mortal innocent to Robert Pattinson’s undead rebel, the author explores the buried messages of this bloodsucking invasion.

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Robert Pattinson, 22, plays Edward Cullen, a young, non-human-preying vampire and Bella Swan’s love interest. He fights James’s coven of vampires in order to protect Bella from being bitten. Pattinson starred as Cedric Diggory in both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and played a young Salvador Dalí in the independent film Little Ashes.

VF Daily: Had you read the Twilight books before getting the script?
Robert Pattinson: Not in their entirety before getting the script, no. I did my screen test, had the weekend before my next meeting for it, and read all three over one weekend.

What was your impression of the books at first?
Well, I obviously really liked them, but it is always strange reading a book knowing that I am hopefully going to play the part. It’s read in a very different context.

Did you go into the auditions wanting to play Edward?
Somewhat, but I was literally embarrassed walking into the audition. I had no idea how to play Edward at all. I thought that even going into the audition was completely pointless, because they were just going to cast a model or something. I felt it was kind of arrogant of me to even go in. I was almost having a full-on panic attack before I went to the screen test.

How did the screen test go?
Casting was really easy going, and Kristen [Stewart] is also very cool, but at the same time there is something very, very serious about her. I really wasn’t expecting the girl who plays Bella to be like her at all. Her professionalism made me keep my mouth shut whenever I wasn’t acting. It further gave the illusion of being serious.
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15 days left…

Or should I say: Only 15 days left. This is the home stretch, “Twilight” fans. In celebration, here’s Part 1 of our Robert Pattinson fan special. I did my best to cram as many of the questions all of you submitted into the interview, and I must say, he was a pretty good sport….

You guys wanted to know what he put in his hair — I asked him. You guys wanted to know about filming the love scenes with Kristen — he revealed that Kristen’s got one heck of a dark side!

Of course, I did not get to all of the questions. There were hundreds. But if you don’t see it answered here, know that there’s still Part 2 coming, and I’ll have a chance to ask a few more at the press junket this Saturday, so do stay tuned!

As you can see, he had a serious case of the giggles Tuesday morning:

What goes through your mind when you’re greeted by crowds of screaming fans?

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What do Pattinson and Edward have in common? “I always get carried away when I’m kissing people,” Pattinson quipped. “I think you’re making their night right now,” Hardwicke joked.

For all the swooning, declarations of love, and marriage proposals proffered last night, it would have been easy to imagine oneself in the midst of a French restaurant on Valentine’s Day — instead of the gray-walled mezzanine of a New York City Apple store. But that’s just the effect Twilight star Robert Pattinson has on his rabid teen — and adult — fans, some of whom waited in line for more than 12 hours to be dazzled by the heartthrob during a Q&A session with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke.

I’ve been to enough Twilight events to know what to expect: screaming girls — lots of them. Though this wasn’t my first time at the vampire rodeo, even I was worried about one young Twilight-hoodie-bedecked teen sitting behind me, who was shaking so violently I thought she might go in to convulsions. And as if to work her and her fellow acolytes into even more of a frenzy, the 22-year-old Pattinson arrived a fashionable 15 minutes late — and with his signature tousled tresses covered by a gray beanie (a development that left me a wee bit disappointed). However, it took just one shy “hello” from the Brit for any tardy transgressions to be quickly forgotten.

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By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — You’d think Brad Pitt had shown up.

Instead, it was Twilight’s brooding vampire Robert Pattinson, accompanied by director Catherine Hardwicke, who drew a packed and very loud crowd at the Soho Apple store Monday night for a fan Q&A about his vampire film based on the best-selling book by Stephenie Meyer.

ASK AWAY: Got a question for Team ‘Twilight?‘

The audience, made up mostly of screaming girls, went nuts when Pattinson showed up, shrieking “I love you” to the British thespian. Pattinson responded with a bemused “thank you” to very boisterous declarations of adoration, but told the ladies he’s no polished hunk.

“I haven’t washed my hair in about six weeks,” said Pattinson, 22. “It’s disgusting.”

Is he anything like Edward Cullen, the bloodsucker who feeds on animals rather than humans? “I have an incredible six-pack. I’m joking,” cracked Pattinson. “I can run really fast. I’m good at climbing trees. I always get carried away when I’m kissing people. I just go nuts.”

He signed on to do the film because “I liked Catherine. I like the story,” said Pattinson. “Done.”

Depending on how Twilight, which opens Nov. 21, performs at the box office, sequels are a possibility for the director and her stars. Hardwicke, best known for smaller films such as Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown, seems mostly unfazed by the massive and very passionate followers of the film, even though fans clustered outside the Apple store and mobbed her car when she arrived.

“They’re very vocal,” said Hardwicke of the book series’ followers.

How did Hardwicke find Pattinson, whose largest film role to date has been Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter films?

“We auditioned every gorgeous guy that acts on the planet,” she said. “(Pattinson) came over to meet with Kristen (Stewart, who plays Edward’s human love Bella) and I. They auditioned and they did some scenes on my bed. These two had the chemistry.”

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By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
Published: October 31, 2008

AS the legions of teenagers who have read the novel on which the forthcoming film “Twilight” is based know, the awkward passage from youth to maturity isn’t the very worst problem an adolescent can have. You could fall helplessly in love with a vampire, which is what happens to the virginal 17-year-old heroine and narrator of Stephenie Meyer’s book.

“We’ve all had the experience of being that age and feeling that everything is life and death,” said Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote the screenplay. “You know, ‘I have nothing to wear today, I’m going to kill myself.’ What’s so wonderful about this story is that everything actually is life and death.”

The transition from page to screen is itself often a less than graceful process, and while it’s rarely a matter of life and death, it can give filmmakers that adolescent sense of unease: “If this movie tanks, I’m going to kill myself.” There’s no denying that in the case of “Twilight” the stakes (so to speak) are high. The four novels in Ms. Meyer’s horror/romance series for young adults — “Twilight” was the first — have sold somewhere near 10 million copies; the most recent, “Breaking Dawn,” racked up sales of 1.3 million on its first day in bookstores in August. And fans are on the rabid side. “There’s all this stuff online,” said the film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke. “People were making casting suggestions, and now they’re doing their own trailers and posters. It’s stimulating, in a way.”

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Their vampire characters shun human blood. The young actors are a similarly civilized group, having spent so much quality time together.

Robert Pattinson has all the traits of a Hollywood heartthrob — photogenic features, a lovely British accent and a starring role as the brooding but devastatingly handsome good guy vampire Edward Cullen in ”Twilight”, the big-screen adaptation of the first installment in author Stephenie Meyer’s wildly successful young-adult book series due in theaters Nov. 21.

The only thing that doesn’t quite fit? Pattinson is one seriously self-deprecating guy.

‘I can’t watch myself on screen,’ said the 22-year-old actor, who previously appeared as Cedric Diggory in the ”Harry Potter” films. ”When my parents say, ‘Oh, did you see this photo?’ I immediately start going, ‘Don’t tell me about photos!’ I haven’t watched anything since the premiere of ‘Harry Potter.’ And that’s because I couldn’t find a way out.

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