The Rover star Robert Pattinson says he lacks the confidence to play a conventional leading man

DON’T expect to see a newly-buff Robert Pattinson — Down Under for The Rover premiere — in a superhero movie any time soon.

DON’T expect to see a newly-buff Robert Pattinson in a superhero movie any time soon.

“It’s not really about the physicality,’’ said the former Twilight heart-throb today ahead of the red carpet premiere of dystopian Outback thriller The Rover at the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday night.

“Those leading guy roles are all extremely confident characters and I am just not that confident. I would feel weird faking that confidence.

“The action guy who does the little quip at the end of killing somebody? I would sound like a psycho.”

Just don’t call him a tough guy ... Robert Pattinson says he lacks the confidence to be a superhero. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Pattinson said he and co-star Guy Pearce, with whose character he forms an uneasy alliance in The Rover, had compared notes.

“We’re not really considered for those normal leading man roles — well, maybe I was for a little period after Twilight. I guess I gravitate towards niche things but also those are the things I get offered.”

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Pattinson, who spent a month on location in South Australia while filming David Michod’s hotly-anticipated follow-up to Animal Kingdom, says the closest he is ever likely to come to playing a classic leading man is his role as T.E. Lawrence in Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert, which stars Nicole Kidman.

“I was playing Lawrence of Arabia! They are huge shoes to fill,” he said.

Reviews for Pattinson’s performance in The Rover, in which he plays a slow-witted Southern drifter to Pearce’s embittered avenger, have been universally positive – Variety went so far as to describe it as “career-redefining.”

The actor said the accolades generated by last month’s prestigious midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival felt like a validation “for about five seconds.”

But the next job was almost more important.

“It’s almost like creating a brand,’’ he said.

“You have to get enough good reviews so that people go in expecting a good movie – then half your job is done. “

In a press conference at the Sydney Theatre, attended by Pearce, Michod and producers Liz Watts and David Linde, Pattinson downplayed the physical discomfort of the seven weeks he spent on location in Hammond, Quorn, Copley and Leigh Creek in the middle of the Australian summer.

“I am being prompted to say how awful it was. But I really liked it. I just found it incredibly serene being able to look to the horizon. I liked the harshness of the landscape as well. There’s something strangely mystical about it.

Co-stars ... Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson promoting their new movie The Rovers. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“I think it was my most challenging role so far. It was certainly the scariest, even though I only had a few scenes.”

The 28-year-old actor said Kidman was very different to how he expected she would be.

“I guess maybe I saw her as quite untouchable. I was only in Morocco for about 10 days, but she is really funny and super accessible — just hanging out with her kids.

“She was really easy to work with. I really liked her.”

Made in Australia ... Robert Pattinson, centre, and Guy Pearce, right, during filming of The Rover in South Australia.

Pattinson, who was photographed coming out of an LA gym immediately prior to boarding the plane to Australia, puts his relatively recent conversion to treadmills down to age.

“When you get to your late 20s, you start turning into a fat arse. It’s crazy. You actually have to think about what you eat. It’s so annoying,” he said.

“I thought it would happen a bit later.”

Originally published as The Rover star Robert Pattinson says he lacks the confidence to play a conventional leading man