Thinking of Rob   It's all about Robert Pattinson

You’ve heard of “Cosmopolis,” the stylishly surreal adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel, but have you heard of its director and star, up-and-comers David Cronenberg and Robert Pattinson?

We’re kidding.

Cronenberg, of course, is the man responsible for “A Dangerous Method” and “Eastern Promises,” while Pattinson is the driving force behind a gazillion heartbeats as the romantic lead of the monumentally popular “Twilight Saga.” The pairing, deemed unlikely in a handful of headlines, is a logical next step for Pattinson, who retires his vampire fangs with the final “Twilight” installment in November, and has already laid the groundwork for a serious dramatic career with other roles, including the lead in last year’s “Water For Elephants.”

We’ve been wondering about the impact of casting a teen idol in a very adult movie — and this week, we got a chance to go straight to the source. We talked to Cronenberg and Pattinson about their relationship to die-hard Twi-Hards, and got their take on the recent marriage of big-name directors to superhero movies (Spoiler: Cronenberg thinks it’s ridiculous).

In casting Robert Pattinson, you have an interesting tension between a big percentage of his fanbase — teenage girls, many of them — and a film they might find inscrutable. Is that conflict appealing to you?

David Cronenberg: It was not really an issue at all, in terms of casting. On the other hand, what was interesting was while we were shooting the movie, all these “Cosmopolis” websites popped up that were created by “Twilight” fans and Rob fans, and they were reading the book and exchanging notes about the book and how it might work in the movie. Really, I wasn’t thinking that this was necessarily going to be an audience for this movie, but then I started to think, “Well, some of them, it definitely is going to be.” And that was exciting ’cause these are young girls who maybe had read “Twilight” and “Harry Potter,” and suddenly they’re reading Don DeLillo. That’s pretty good.

I don’t really have an audience in mind when I’m making a movie … I’m making it for me and all of us who are excited about the script. I’m making it for an audience, but that’s kind of an unknown and amorphous audience, so anybody who’s part of that audience is okay with us, let’s put it that way.

Read more after the jump!

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