10 Times Robert Pattinson Went Full Freak Mode, Ranked By How Weirdly Into It We Were

In The Rover, Pattinson takes on the role of the needy and fairly incompetent Rey. When he, his brother, and his comrades rob veteran Eric (Guy Pearce), Rey finds himself injured and left behind, sparking a wild adventure as Eric uses him to find the men who robbed him. Pattinson steals the show with his performance as the childlike Rey, who says and does little but still manages to convey his innocence and neediness amid a collapsing society.

Throughout The Rover, he develops a sort of dependence on who’s essentially his kidnapper, Eric. Meanwhile, despite the characters treating him as a simpleton, it does feel like there’s more to Rey than meets the eye. Overall, it’s far from Pattinson’s freakiest role, but it’s offbeat enough that it catches your attention, which is why it ranks 10th on this list.

The King tracks the rise of Henry V (Timothée Chalamet) to the English throne, finding himself thrust into a treacherous world of politics and conflict after a privileged boyhood. Pattinson stars in the film’s strangest role as The Dauphin of France. He’s the heir to the throne and Henry V’s rival as the king goes to war with France. The Dauphin is arrogant and crude, casting around threats and insults like a spoiled child.

Pattinson gets pretty weird with his overly exaggerated, quite terrible French accent while shaking his long, blonde locks. Although the accent is a miss, it feels intentional. He’s driving home just how ridiculous The Dauphin is, adding some humor to the otherwise serious movie. While he does an excellent job of making The Dauphin a cartoonish character, the character’s contrast with the tone of The King can be a little unsettling.

Good Time follows Connie Nikas (Pattinson), a small-time crook who sets off on a dangerous mission to free his brother Nick Nikas (Benny Safdie) after his arrest. In the film, Pattinson portrays one of his most dangerous and unhinged characters, digging deep into Connie’s misguided attempts to rescue his brother. While he believes he is pursuing a noble cause, he only stirs up more chaos and destruction as he manipulates and lies his way to Nick.

As the title suggests, Good Time does, indeed, offer a good time with its fast-paced, unpredictable crime spree. However, Pattinson’s performance allows it to go deeper, as he demonstrates the complexity of Connie’s relationship with Nick and shows that loving someone doesn’t always mean you have the right kind of love for them. He gets a little freaky as Connie, transforming into someone in the depths of fanaticism and desperation, though there’s also something undeniably human about his portrayal.

‘Freaky’ isn’t a word most would use to describe Bruce Wayne (a.k.a. Batman), but Pattinson brings some weirdness to the role, and it works. The Batman sees the titular hero (Pattinson) delve deep into Gotham's corruption as he attempts to take down the deadly Riddler (Paul Dano). Pattinson captures all the familiar qualities of the Dark Knight, including his brooding, darker nature.

However, he forgoes the charming billionaire playboy persona of some iterations of Batman, opting instead for a more reclusive, emo vibe. The eccentricity is most noticeable in his portrayal of Wayne, as he plays the role with considerable awkwardness and moodiness. It’s so subtle that it doesn’t rank among his freakiest roles, but it is still enough to really reflect the inner turmoil and struggles of young Wayne as he tries to find his footing as Batman.

The Boy and the Heron centers on a young boy, Mahito Maki, who follows a mysterious talking grey Heron after the animal promises to help him find his late mother. In the English dub of the film, Pattinson voices the Grey Heron. The film will definitely leave you wishing for more voice-acting roles for Pattinson, whose voice is unrecognizable as the Heron.

Speaking in a gravelly, raspy tone, he masks the Heron in mystery. It’s a voice that sounds, at times, cartoonish, but also sometimes chilling and sinister. The Heron itself is quite freaky, with an unusual appearance and hiding a secret that makes it even weirder than a talking, elusive bird. Ultimately, Pattinson gets quite freaky with the Heron’s voice, though there’s only so much he can do in the role since it’s not live-action.

In Little Ashes, Pattinson portrays the eccentric artist Salvador Dalí during his days at art school, where he strikes up a strong but complicated friendship with aspiring filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty) and poet Federico García Lorca (Javier Beltrán). Dalí was known for his eccentric behavior, and while Little Ashes only scratches the surface, Pattinson does an excellent job of capturing his unconventional genius.

Pattinson paints a picture of a complex figure who was both shy and flamboyant. While struggling with shyness and paranoia, he still harbors a deep desire for fame. As time goes on, Pattinson portrays Dalí with increasing intensity as the artist finds fame and displays fascist tendencies while navigating a love affair. Dalí is one of Pattinson’s most strange and complicated roles, though it feels the story ends prematurely before he can get fully into freak mode.

Pattinson stars in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse as Ephraim Winslow, a young man who begins working at an isolated lighthouse under the mentorship of former sailor Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe). In the beginning, Winslow seems like a typical young man, learning the ropes and dealing with an overbearing mentor. However, as time goes on, both Winslow and Wake grow more unhinged, spiralling out of control under the strain of hallucinations, isolation, and alcoholism.

Pattinson gets quite weird, with his character’s behavior shifting between shocking and hilarious. One moment, he and Dafoe are drunkenly slow-dancing, and the next, they are quarreling and contemplating murder. Meanwhile, the freaky performance fits perfectly with The Lighthouse as a dark exploration of human nature and the impact of loneliness and guilt on the human psyche.

In The Devil All the Time, Pattinson portrays Rev. Preston Teagardin, who hides quite a bit of darkness beneath his outward self-righteous presentation. Teagardin is a predator who manipulates the women and girls in his community into having relationships with him, derailing multiple lives and leading some to drastic measures after he abandons them. He is easily one of the most evil characters Pattinson has played, and he does the job well, making Teagardin a despicable figure.

There is a good deal of freakiness to Teagardin, although it’s an unsavory kind of freakiness. He gives off creepy vibes, clearly using his religion as a costume, making it easy to deduce there’s something sinister beneath his weird pastor persona. Two-faced, unbelievably creepy, and self-righteous, Teagardin is one of Pattinson’s freakiest characters. However, he’s so antagonistic that we’re not as intrigued by him as we are by Pattinson’s mostly harmless, weird characters.

Mickey 17 tells the story of Mickey Barnes (Pattinson), a young man who joins a space colony mission as an “Expendable.” As an Expendable, Mickey is repeatedly killed and cloned to perform dangerous missions, but everything changes when clones Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 overlap. Mickey reminds me a lot of Pattinson’s The Rover character, but with an even higher dose of eccentricity.

In the film, Mickey is a child-like, naive man, which makes it even more upsetting how he’s taken advantage of as an Expendable. Meanwhile, Pattinson ramps up the weirdness with Mickey’s strange accent and the contrast between Mickey 17’s innocence and Mickey 18’s extreme aggression. Between dying over a dozen times, portraying multiple iterations of his character, and adapting his character well to an absurd, dystopian premise, Pattinson’s freaky Mickey is both intriguing and oddly lovable.

Nothing is freakier than Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga film series, and Pattinson seemed to understand that perfectly. A lot of readers idealize Cullen as a romantic, heartthrob of a teenage vampire. However, Pattinson picked up on how weird the character really is and portrayed him with the perfect amount of intensity, moodiness, and absurdity.

The film's creatives wanted a more charming, heroic, and romantic Cullen, but Pattinson fought with them to keep his intense, serious portrayal, which aligns more closely with the books. At the end of the day, there isn’t much romance about a 100-year-old vampire who's obsessed with a 17-year-old whom he also wants to suck the blood of. In the end, Pattinson went full freak mode for the brooding, stalking, unhinged Edward, and it worked exactly as he intended.