Birthdate: May 13, 1986
Birthplace: Barnes, London, England, UK
Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson was born May 13, 1986, in London, England, to Richard Pattinson, a car dealer importing vintage cars, and Clare Pattinson (née Charlton), who worked as a booker at a model agency. He grew up in Barnes, southwest London with two older sisters. Robert discovered his love for music long before acting and started learning the guitar and piano at the age of four.
He became a big cinephile for his love of auteur cinema in his early teens and preferred to watch films rather than do his homework. In his late teens and early twenties, he used to perform solo acoustic guitar gigs at open mic nights in bars and pubs around London where he sang his written songs. Thinking about becoming a musician or going to university to study speechwriting, he never thought about pursuing an acting career, and his drama teacher in school even advised him not to join the drama club because she thought he wasn't made for the creative subjects.
But as a teenager, he joined the local amateur theatre club after his father convinced him to attend because he was quite shy. At age 15 and after two years of working backstage, he auditioned for the play 'Guys and Dolls' and he got his first role as a Cuban dancer with no lines. He got the lead part in the next play 'Our Town', was spotted by a talent agent who was sitting in the audience and he began looking for professional roles.
His first screen role was a small part in Vanity Fair (2004), but he'd been cut out of the final film and didn't know about it until he attended the premiere. The casting director felt so guilty for not telling him, that she got him the audition for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). He was lucky and succeeded in gaining the role of Cedric Diggory, which brought him to a wider audience at the age of 19 and he continued to star in mostly smaller British TV productions. Hollywood expressed only mild interest in him and he was still debating whether or not he wished to pursue acting.
Throughout that period, Pattinson would occasionally send audition tapes for roles in America. One, for a rom-com, led to the opportunity for an in-person audition in Los Angeles. That audition did not pan out, but while in town he went in for another, with Thirteen (2003) director Catherine Hardwicke, for a part in what he understood to be an indie movie based on a low-profile book about a vampire.
Being the last one out of 3000 male actors to audition for the part, the role of Edward Cullen in the film adaptations of the Twilight novels written by Stephenie Meyer brought him to unexpected worldwide stardom at age 22 and the five films between 2008 and 2012 grossed over $3.3 billion in worldwide receipts. Between the Twilight Saga films, he also starred in Remember Me (2010), Water for Elephants (2011), and Bel Ami (2012).
Pattinson's Twilight era was surreal. He had been catapulted onto Hollywood's A-list as a heartthrob, but also experienced certain preconceptions about what he wanted - or was capable of doing - as an actor. That changed with an unexpected straight offer from auteur director David Cronenberg to star in Cosmopolis (2012), which he described as an eye-opening experience: It reminded him of his love for cinema, why he wanted to become an actor in the first place, and solidified his foremost desire for the coming years to work with great filmmakers.
With Pattinson being a big cinephile, he since then starred in mostly independent films from respected auteur directors, such as The Rover (2014), Maps to the Stars (2014), Life (2015), Queen of the Desert (2015) and The Childhood of a Leader (2015). His unrecognizable role as an explorer in the Amazon jungle in The Lost City of Z (2016) by director James Gray brought him much critical acclaim. His transformation to a sleazy, manic conman in the gritty crime thriller Good Time (2017) earned a six-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival and brought him a nomination for Best Actor at the Independent Spirit Awards.
It was a major step for his transition into a character actor with incredible range, with critics calling his performance a revelation and career-defining. He starred in the Western comedy Damsel (2018) as a cowboy with sociopathic characteristics and played a convict sent to space for sexual experimentation in the psychological mystery drama High Life (2018) from acclaimed French auteur director Claire Denis. He returned to work with director David Michôd in The King (2019) and starred in the black-and-white fantasy-horror movie The Lighthouse (2019) from director Robert Eggers, which earned him his second Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor. In Netflix's The Devil All the Time (2020), Pattinson played a corrupt preacher preying on young girls.
Pattinson returned to mainstream films with a leading role in Christopher Nolan's time-bending spy film Tenet (2020) and will star as the DC Comics superhero Batman in Matt Reeves' film The Batman (2022). Pattinson voiced the character of The Grey Heron in the English-language dubbed version (produced by GKIDS and supervised by dubbing director Michael Sinterniklaas) of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli/Toho saga, The Boy and the Heron (2023), with the voice cast of Luca Padovan, Karen Fukuyama, Gemma Chan, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe and Dave Bautista, and which grossed $294 million globally.
Robert Pattinson starred in the title role of Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi Mickey 17 (2025), based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel titled Mickey7, co-starring Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Ton Collette, and Mark Ruffalo, premiering at the Berlin Film Festival and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. Pattinson then joined the sprawling cast of Christopher Nolan’s $250-million-budgeted film version of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey (2026), starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, with Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia and Mia Goth, backed and released by Universal Pictures.
Pattinson co-starred with star-producer Jennifer Lawrence in director/co-writer Lynne Ramsay’s dark comedy, Die, My Love (date to be announced), co-written by Enda Walsh and based on Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, and co-starring LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte. Pattinson then co-starred with Zendaya in director/writer Kristoffer Borgli’s comedy-drama, The Drama (date to be announced), with Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim, and released by A24.
Robert Pattinson (birthname: Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson) was born and raised in London, England, to Richard Pattinson (a car dealer) and Clare Pattinson (a model agency booker). Pattinson has two older sisters, Elizabeth and Victoria. Pattinson began performing in student productions very early in his life (six years old), attending Tower House Boys’ Preparatory School. Pattinson then attended Harrodian School, performed with the Barnes Theatre Company amateur group, worked as a model, and gigged as a singer-songwriter in London.
Pattinson was signed by an agent following his lead performance in a Barnes Theatre production of Our Town. Pattinson was in a relationship with his Twilight co-star, Kristen Stewart, from 2009 until their much-publicized breakup in 2013. Pattinson was engaged to singer-songwriter FKA Twigs but broke it off in 2017. Pattinson has been in a relationship with actor/singer/songwriter Suki Waterhouse since 2018; the couple has one daughter. Pattinson’s height is 6’ 1”. Pattinson’s estimated net worth is $100 million.
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Bad Boy: Robert Pattinson was kicked out of his middle school at age 12 when he was caught shoplifting porn magazines.
Bad Student: Pattinson had admitted that he was a poor student in school since he devoted much more time to watching movies—he has said that he became a genuine cinephile as a teenager— and writing music than focusing on his studies.
Acting Not a Big Thing: Robert Pattinson didn’t seriously consider acting as a career option while he pursued a career in modeling as well as gigging as a singer-songwriter, and only acting on his father’s urging to help him overcome his shyness
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