Robert Pattinson Reveals He 'Punched Himself' Before His Harry Potter Scenes

Before he became The Batman, or even before he came a vampire in Twilight, Robert Pattinson starred in the Harry Potter franchise.

Pattinson debuted (and exited the series) in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, playing Hufflepuff's golden boy Cedric Diggory in the Triwizard Tournament alongside Daniel Radcliffe's boy wizard.

Despite his appearance ending in tragedy, with his father wailing amid news of Voldemort's return, fans and critics agreed it was an excellent performance from the then-18-year-old. However, it turns out he was rather nervous about taking on the role.

Goblet of Fire was only Pattinson's third professional acting gig, coming after an appearance in Vanity Fair and uncredited turn in Sword of Xanten, a fantasy TV movie.

Speaking to GQ for its YouTube series where actors break down their most iconic characters, Pattinson said, 'He's the first death in Harry Potter, which is my claim to fame... it was definitely my concept to jump out of the tree for my intro, which I kind of repeated later in Twilight. For some reason, I always had the suggestion of like... why doesn't he appear just jumping out of a tree?'

Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory (Warner Bros.)

'I’d sort of fallen into it. I mean, it was so terrifying. I remember the first scene I ever shot was in the magical maze at the end, and I’d never done anything with special effects and stunts. And it was a big deal at the time. It felt very, very, intimidating,' he continued.

After reading a book on method acting, 'the only thing I really got out of that was just beating yourself up before every single scene,' he said.

'That was basically my only concept of how to prepare for a scene. I was psyching myself up as if I was getting into a fight or something before these scenes, and just screaming into a pillow and fighting, punching myself, and kind of ripping my clothing and stuff.

Daniel Radcliffe and Robert Pattinson in Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros.)

'But I had all these prosthetic wounds on, and all of the prosthetics would melt off my face, and I’d have to have all of my makeup done again. But I had no concept of how to kind of get into a psyched-up physical state.'

Pattinson also recalled holding a wand, and thinking it felt 'so dorky' to hold it like a magic wand, so he held it 'like a gun... thinking I'm in a Die Hard movie'.

After the movie wrapped, Pattinson said he spent a 'long time' living off the money in Soho in London. 'I really thought I was gonna do music, I don't know where I had the belief in that,' he said, but as he ran out of money, he eventually found Twilight - and the rest is history.

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