Photo: Theo Wenner

"Twilight is a metaphor for the virtues of chastity, but it's had the opposite effect," a chagrined Robert Pattinson told us shortly before the goth blockbuster slayed audiences in late November. "I get letters that say, 'I'm going to kill myself if you don't watch High School Musical 2 with me.' " It was a little nuts: girls rampaging through malls for a glimpse of a relatively unknown 22-year-old British actor who played a brooding bloodsucker named Edward. But so far, the London-raised Pattinson (whose breakout was a memorable part in the Harry Potter series) has stayed humble. In his next film, Little Ashes, he will play a young Salvador Dali, as his advisers mull a trusted plan for plucking an actor from the tweenscape: Get him a role that puts a gun in his hand. But, Edward-mania will be hard to forget. Says Pattinson, "A mother recently gave me her baby and asked, 'Can you please bite his head?' " MELISSA MAERZ

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