With reporting by Josh Horowitz.

Robert Pattinson has been around the teen franchise hero block once or twice, having played the main sparkly vampire love interest in a little something called "The Twilight Saga" (in case you'd forgotten). Lately, other YA franchises are doing their damnedest to make stars out of their own teen leads, be they Shailene Woodley, Jennifer Lawrence or others.

While speaking with MTV News ahead of the release of "The Rover," a decidedly not "Twilight"-esque thriller set in the Australian outback, Pattinson reminisced on his own days as a teen idol.

Now that studios expect massive hits, he said, there "is a lot more pressure on people now. For the first year after the first 'Twilight' I just messed around. For the first press tour I was just trying to amuse myself. I didn't realize anyone was watching the interviews. I guess it's kind of different, a different level of professionalism."

Now, if Lawrence sneezes or even spills a tin of mints while doing press duty, it's newsworthy.

Pattinson, too, has more attention on him now that he's struck it big. If there's one thing he's learned, he said, it's to take it a little easier on himself.

"I'm trying to be less self-deprecating, because you spend like seven years self deprecating and people are like, 'that guy doesn't think he's worth s--t!'"