Twilight's Robert Pattinson: What's All the Fuss About?

The oddly charming Robert Pattinson appeared on Late Night with David Letterman on Wednesday, two days before the premiere of his latest film, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." The sloe-eyed British actor talked about obliging his fans by biting them, dodged uncomfortable questions about his supposed relationship with his co-star Kristen Stewart and revealed that he didn't understand the obsessive interest he gets from his fans in real life.

"Maybe It's Some Kind of Scent or Something"

Not having been caught up in the "Twilight" phenomenon, I tuned in to Letterman to see what all the fuss was about. At first glance, the twenty four- year -old Pattinson appears to be a gaunt young man with an angular cranium and a terminal case of "bed head." His lips were unusually red (tinged by blood sucking?) and he is sporting a light stubbly beard, a la "Wolverine."

His banter with David Letterman was unexpectedly entertaining. Dave seemed to be taken a little aback by his comments and the stories that Pattinson was relating. The actor actually admitted to biting (really pretending to bite) the head of a baby which was offered to him (the whole baby, not just its head.) "That was before anyone had asked me to bite them at all. I just thought it was hilarious that someone handed me this child to do whatever with. Initially, I just thought they were giving it to me. And somehow I ended up biting the baby on the head, and there was a photo of it afterwards." Letterman reminded him that there were all kinds of laws broken in every part of that "transaction."

Pattinson said that was the start of fans asking for bites. He joked that when someone wants to be bitten, "It depends on your mood, really," that "there's variations of biting" and " it depends, you know, what you want to get out of it in the end." Dave reminded him that it wasn't "healthy especially with the swine flu going around! And the swine flu is the least of it, honest to God!"

Hollywood's latest "It Boy" is still "trying to figure out" why fans are so wild for him. "Maybe it's some kind of scent or something." But besides the "tween" adulation, many of the females who show up for his appearances could be the mothers of those "tweens." His offbeat but provocative looks seem to make him the perfect choice to play the ghoulishly pale, melancholy vampire, Edward Cullen.

A Love Affair with Vampires

I've always appreciated the allure of vampires in film. Bela Lugosi was my first, an overly theatrical and cheesy very old-world vamp but still a fond childhood memory. (Dracula as grandfather?) I shivered with excitement later at the sight of the then very sexy, perhaps the sexiest vampire, Frank Langella in "Dracula" circa 1979. "Interview with the Vampire," by Anne Rice subsequently captured my imagination and though its central character of 'Lestat,' as played by Tom Cruise, was not nearly as attractive to me as Brad Pitt's romantic vampire with a conscience,'Louis,' the movie itself was still true to the epic novel. But until HBO's "True Blood" last year, it had been a long drought in the moody, hunky vampire department.

I might just check out "New Moon." Pattinson is at the very least intriguing and as usual, Dave Letterman put it best: "How about that kid? He's got the world by the tail. I did kind of want to bite him on the neck!"

Source: "Late Night with David Letterman" CBS