Why Robert Pattinson is still into acting

Before Twilight and New Moon, Robert Pattinson nearly gave up on acting. This seems ridiculous in retrospect given his current stardom, but People takes a look at this period in his life–

“He was thinking about giving up acting and maybe doing music solely when this role [in How To Be] came along,” the film’s director, Oliver Irving, tells PEOPLE. “He wanted to play the roles he wasn’t getting.”

Irving says that for Pattinson, being cast as the lead of role of an awkward, quirky young musician who hires a self-help guru to come live with him “got him back into the swing of things again.” Irving adds that after the Harry Potter films, in which Pattinson played Cedric Diggory, “He was looking for something more challenging.”

Read the rest at People.