Edward Cullen <i>who</i>? Focus, people, this is ‘Cosmopolis’

Robert Pattinson wasn’t talking “Twilight” at the Cannes Film Festival news conference for “Cosmopolis.” The film’s director, David Cronenberg, seemed to want to keep the blood-sucker talk to a minimum.

Pattinson is a “real person,” Cronenberg said -- the inference: unlike Edward Cullen, that white-faced, golden-eyed heartthrob of the “Twilight” saga.

In the new movie, premiering at Cannes on Friday, Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a Wall Street financier. (Hey, Edward Cullen had plenty of money too. Remember that house? Those cars?)

As 24 Frames puts it, Packer is a “troubled billionaire who is watching the world implode around him from his limousine.” Packer elicits intrigue and respect but isn’t liked very much. (That’s reminiscent of Edward Cullen too! High schoolers held him in awe but kept their distance.)

That’s enough of that. At the news conference Friday, Cronenberg did not seem to want to indulge in any Cullen comparisons or “Twilight” twaddle.

“It’s very easy to say that this character... is a vampire or a werewolf of Wall Street,” the director said. “But, really, that’s fairly superficial.”

As for Pattinson, he seemed to appreciate the challenge of this new film. Acting chops were called for -- “more so than a movie that calls for an actor to mope around as a lovelorn vampire a la Edward Cullen,” as 24 Frames’ Steven Zeitchik notes.

And Pattinson spent some nervous, fingernail-chewing weeks.

“I spent two weeks in my hotel room worrying,” he said.

After all, he wasn’t playing a mythical creature anymore. As Cronenberg put it, Pattinson “is a real person in the movie.”

Not a guy who grows fangs. Metaphorical fangs? Maybe. But don’t tell Cronenberg I said that.

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