Robert Pattinson Says He Was ‘Almost Turned Off’ of Acting for Two Years: ‘Nothing’s Cool’ with Scripts

Robert Pattinson is revealing that he was questioning his career for two years after a lack of “cool” scripts.

The “Mickey 17” star told Vanity Fair that between the pandemic and the SAG strikes, he was starting to wonder if cinema really was dying.

“It’s strange because the last few years for the film industry, starting with COVID and then the strikes, everyone was constantly saying cinema is dying. And quite convincingly. I was literally almost turned off,” Pattinson said of acting. “It actually started to get a little worrying.”

He continued, “Then looking in the last few months, there’s this flurry of very ambitious movies. I feel like the stuff that’s going to get nominated for Oscars this year is going to be really interesting, and it seems like there’s suddenly a new batch of directors who the audience is excited about as well.”

Pattinson listed his favorite recent films, including Norwegian Oscar submission “Armand” starring Renate Reinsve, Brady Corbet’s buzzy “The Brutalist,” and Sean Baker’s “Anora.”

“I saw this Norwegian movie ‘Armand,’ which I thought was amazing. My friend Brady Corbet’s movie ‘The Brutalist.’ ‘Anora,'” Pattinson said. “You can even see in terms of scripts. I mean, every actor for two years was saying, ‘What is happening? Nothing’s cool.’ Not saying that everything that came out wasn’t cool, but actually it was very studio. I don’t know what was going on really, what happened in the Saturn return or whatever it is, but now there’s really cool parts everywhere. […] Hopefully ‘Mickey’ will come out in a period of enthusiasm for cinema.”

Pattinson recalled how his own approach to selecting scripts has changed across his two decades-spanning career.

“I remember when I was younger, there were two scripts which I didn’t even go to the audition for because I was like, the part is too good and I’m not good enough to do it,” he said. “Now I’m like, if you think that the part is too good, that’s the part you 100 percent should get and really, really fight for. The more you feel, if you fuck it up, it would be like a travesty — that’s the part you should go after.”

Pattinson previously said that he might retire from acting after completing the planned “The Batman” trilogy with director Matt Reeves. “The Batman” was released in 2022, with its sequel expected in theaters in late 2026. Reeves’ iteration of the comic book superhero also has expanded into Max series “The Penguin.”

“I could genuinely be retiring by the end of them,” Pattinson said of the state of his career after three Reeves films, adding of acting as a whole, “Not in a million years did I think I’d still be doing this when I got my first job. I can’t believe this is still going.”