Robert Pattinson has hinted he felt stuck in a rut until director David Cronenberg cast him in experimental film Cosmopolis.

The Twilight heartthrob plays a billionaire who conducts his life from his swanky limousine in the Canadian director's new film, where he is seen holding business meetings, seducing lovers and even having a prostate examination from his doctor.

R-Patz said: "As soon as you start existing in a certain world, you feel like you have tremendous amount of baggage all the time. You get stuck in this rut where you want people to think you're something else, but you're too scared to do what that is to actually be the other person.

"Then you get a gift like this movie where it's way easier than I thought it was. You just do it. It doesn't really matter if you fail."

The 26-year-old actor said the film "changed the way I see myself".

He added: "I got Twilight and it suddenly became a massively different world to navigate. Most people who get their big hit have figured out what their skills are, and I hadn't, really."

Meanwhile, Cronenberg revealed he had relied on Robert's Twilight fame to get interest in his film.

The director - whose previous three films, A History Of Violence, Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method, all starred Viggo Mortensen - said: "Rob, he's popular.

"I couldn't have cast Rob without Twilight just as I couldn't have cast Viggo without Lord Of The Rings.

"The fact that somebody who has clout is willing to do a movie that's difficult is a gift to a director because you're not only getting the right guy as an actor, but you're getting financing interest and you get to make the movie. This is not an easy movie to get made."