Robert Pattinson is reflecting on the one time he decided to try therapy — and why the experience didn’t quite land the way he expected.
In a newly released chat with his The Drama co-star Zendaya for Interview Mag, the two actors joked about how tough it can be to clearly put their thoughts into words. Pattinson kept circling back to his own struggles with expressing himself.
“I was listening to a podcast yesterday with a director, and when I hear someone who’s eloquent, it makes me really angry,” Pattinson, 39, shared. “I felt inspired by thinking that eloquence is a kind of classist act. I was like, there’s something honest about not being able to express yourself. It’s proletarian to not be able to say anything.”
Robert Pattinson’s struggle with communication eventually led to a blunt confession about his brief attempt at therapy.
“I went to therapy once and the therapist asked me if I was on drugs because they couldn’t understand what I was talking about. I was like, ‘I’m trying my best.’”
Laughing at himself, he continued, “I thought I was going somewhere. I got on the boat and I was like— … ‘I want to get off now!’”
Elsewhere in his chat with Zendaya, Pattinson opened up about the pressure he felt after landing his breakout role in the The Twilight Saga.
Playing vampire Edward Cullen across five films from 2008 to 2012 alongside Kristen Stewart — whom he also dated at the time — shot him into global fame almost overnight.
“When I was doing Twilight, there was such a cultural pushback against it, almost simultaneous to its success, so I kind of had to ride both things,” Pattinson told Zendaya. “I really enjoyed making the movies, but then there was such a huge marketing push behind it as well.”
“I didn’t want to get my personal identity caught up in that, so I tried to push forward my individuality a little, and that kind of stuck with me,” he added. “It was also interesting getting famous off of playing a part—people thought I was that character in the beginning.”
He went on to explain, “Also, I wasn’t precious about that identity because it wasn’t my identity to begin with. It’s interesting to use the public perception of you as part of your character development, because you’re like, ‘I assume at least a few people in the audience are going to be expecting this,’ so you can make it more dramatic. But at the same time, you never really know what people are thinking.”
