You can’t read a book, watch a movie, hunt for a Halloween costume or tune into TV these days without running into vampires, and our cover story this weekend takes a look at why bloodsuckers — with franchises such as Twilight, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries — are so hot in pop culture right now. In addition to interviewing True Blood book author Charlaine Harris and Dacre Stoker, Dracula author Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew, our Brian Truitt had the chance to talk with cover boy Robert Pattinson, the popular star of Twilight and the upcoming sequel New Moon (in theaters Nov. 20). Pattinson, who plays the vampire Edward Cullen, was up in Vancouver filming Eclipse, the third adaptation from Stephenie Meyer’s book series coming out next year. “Almost every scene is a fight scene at the moment — for the last couple of weeks anyway,” he reports. “We’ve been doing splits for the past week and a half.” Read below for some of Pattinson’s thoughts on Eclipse and making the Twilight movies, and check out this new clip from New Moon featuring his co-stars, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner.

Read more after the jump!

For each movie, Pattinson says he’s tried to reinvent Edward a little bit. The first Twilight film had him falling in love with the human Bella (Stewart); New Moon has him banishing himself from Bella’s life, thereby creating a love triangle with the werewolf Jacob (Lautner); and Eclipse creates a tenuous co-existence between Edward and Jacob. “He’s definitely quite different” in Eclipse, Pattinson says of Edward. “In some ways, he’s more relaxed being around humans, and at the same time, he’s competing a lot more with Jacob so he has a lot more petty emotions rather than just thinking in these absolutes like he did in the first two. I’m just trying to keep it interesting for myself as well.”

What does Pattinson retreat to at the end of the day after leaving the Eclipse set, swooning fans and the ever-present paparazzi behind? Creating music in his hotel room. “It’s nice to have a bit of artistic or creative endeavor that isn’t so pressurized,” he explains. “So many people have an opinion, especially when you’re doing the Twilight movies. Making this movie, it’s almost as if people have become more concerned with what the fans want the more successful it becomes. The first one seemed more relaxed than this one, and that one wasn’t particularly relaxed. But it’s nice to do music where no one’s too concerned with what I’m doing with it. It’s kind of a relief.”

While there is no official word on when the film adaptation of Meyer’s final (at least so far) Twilight book, Breaking Dawn, will happen — Pattinson figures he’ll be working on that in the summer — the British actor doesn’t know if he will miss being Edward Cullen when all is said and done. “I’ve just been so tightly bound,” Pattinson admits. “I did another movie in New York over the summer, and it was so tightly bound to Twilight. You have huge groups of fans and paparazzi and stuff, and it was a tiny little indie. It still felt like I was doing a Twilight movie in a lot of ways. It’ll be interesting to see how I’ll feel about the whole thing a couple years after it’s all finished.”

Exclusive interview with “Twilight”‘s Robert Pattinson

Biting off more than he can chew?

Bela Lugosi never had to deal with hordes of screaming teenage girls like Robert Pattinson does.

But that’s just the appeal of Edward Cullen, the brooding vampire Pattinson plays onscreen and the love interest in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” book series. Last fall’s “Twilight” movie began the love affair between Edward and the shy human girl Bella (Kristen Stewart); the sequel, “New Moon,” out Nov. 20, finds Edward banishing himself from Bella’s life.

To get a modern image of a vampire, Pattinson initially watched movies such as “Interview With the Vampire” and “Blade.” But he really discovered who Edward was by researching outcast roles not involving the undead. “Rebel Without a Cause was a big influence on the first [“Twilight” film] — it influenced the hairdo and stuff,” Pattinson says, laughing. “In lots of ways, it has a very similar character arc: An everyday girl brings this relatively strange individual out of his slump.”

A James Dean type — that is, Pattinson — always attracts teenage girls in flocks. “It’s like The Birds, with teenage girls,” says “New Moon” director Chris Weitz. “You turn around, and there would be a line of girls standing there.”

Pattinson, 23, a native of London, takes all the swooning over his lanky, 6-foot-tall frame and wildly styled hair in stride. “I’m not entirely sure what it is,” he says. “I’ll probably realize afterward how I could have controlled it a little bit more. But I am still like a deer in headlights.”

And there’s the fact that many haven’t yet separated Pattinson the actor from Edward the vampire. “Right at the beginning, everyone just called me Edward,” he says. “I don’t really mind either way. There’s something about that character that, for some reason, has sparked an interest in massive degrees in so many different people.

“If you want to compete with your own character, you have to really fight. I don’t know if I could be bothered to fight,” he says, chuckling again. “I just let it go by.”

Source: USA Weekend.com