"Twilight" Director Catherine Hardwicke Revealed Why The Studio Was Hesitant To Cast Robert Pattinson, And It's Very Surprising

Robert Pattinson: bona fide hunk. At this point, it's not even up for discussion.

Of course, you already know how he was elevated to eternal heartthrob status — from his role in the Twilight films, naturally.

Now, Robert's made an incredible acting career for himself since Twilight. You could say he's one of our most fascinating male actors at this point.

But Twilight was effectively where it all began — and, as it turns out, Robert was almost not involved with the franchise at all.

During a recent appearance on the Watch-A-Long podcast, Catherine revealed that Summit Entertainment — the studio responsible for the films — initially thought Robert wasn't (gasp!) attractive enough to play Edward Cullen.

During the episode, Catherine recalled her first impression of Robert when they met. “When he came over to my house, he had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time,” she said.

“I thought ‘it works not just in person, but it works on screen.’ I had to be sure. Of course in person I just got carried away, but you have to be sure — does it really translate [to the screen]?”

After Robert met with Summit bigwigs for the first time, that's when further concerns arose. “They called me back and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?’" she recalls.

"I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones? We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’"

"But they didn’t believe it at first," Catherine added. "He walked over there with a stained shirt… It was Rob.”

Moral of the story: If you're up for a big role in a potential smash of a film franchise...make sure to wear a clean shirt.

Listen to the entirety of Catherine's podcast appearance here, spider monkeys.