Robert Pattinson Found One Harry Potter Star Intimidating (It's Not Who You Think)

Once upon a time, Robert Pattinson found Emma Watson intimidating. The "Twilight" and "Batman" star, who so often shares the strangest statements on purpose while working the press circuit, once admitted to Bop Magazine (via Fandom Wire) that he was guilty of peacocking around his "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" co-star. "She is really, really cool," he said during the 2009 interview. "She seems so much older than she really is. I find her quite intimidating. I always find myself trying to impress her. She's very, very clever."

In 2004, when principal photography for "Goblet of Fire" occurred, Pattinson would have been approximately 18 years old, and Watson would have been about 15 years old. Similarly, their characters, Cedric Diggory and Hermione Granger, would have been around 17 and 14. 

Pattinson did not elaborate as to what he did during filming to impress Watson, nor did he clarify his success rate. Based on an old clip that seems to show Pattinson forgetting Watson's name ... it's unlikely that it worked out very well for him. Regardless, comments such as Pattinson's sparked the ever-hungry Hollywood rumor mill. Watson, for her part, squashed any rumors of romance. "He's just a good friend!" she told the New York Daily News. "He's a super-nice guy, and the girls love him. We're just friends – but he sure was great to work with."

Cedric Diggory and Hermione Granger do not interact in the "Harry Potter" film franchise. They don't even interact in the book series. Both actors were required for the same group scenes but that's as close as Cedric and Hermione ever got, so it's not as though Robert Pattinson and Emma Watson were required to spend any substantial amount of time together. It seems likely that any observations made by Pattinson of Watson would have come into being during chance social interactions during larger rehearsals, or later on during the press circuit for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

And it seems that Pattinson's focus, or anxiety, during the press circuit for "Goblet of Fire" was aimed elsewhere. In 2020, he told People that he still regrets his fashion choices for the fourth "Harry Potter" film's red carpet. "I was wearing leather trousers with these cowboy boots and a velvet jacket," he said. "I mean, it literally looked like a kid had gone into a dressing-up box."

Anyone who still harbors mental clarity for a few hours misspent in leather and velvet probably wasn't spending those same hours fussing over the need to impress a co-star. Conversely, maybe he regrets those fashion choices for that very reason. But if he did, there's no way that Pattinson wouldn't share that. Or, at the very least, tell an interesting lie to cover it up. We expect no less from the man who went on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to talk about bats biting chickens' nether regions to promote his "The Batman" research. No, seriously.