Robert Pattinson Channels Artist Salvador Dalí

Twilight star Robert Pattinson can't always play a vampire heartthrob.

In his next movie, Little Ashes, set in 1922 and described by Variety as an "arty Bohemian romp," the London-born actor, 22, plays Spanish surrealist painter (1904-1989) Salvador Dalí as a young man – in love with the poet Federico GarcÍa Lorca, played by Javier Beltran.

The two meet at university, with Lorca attracted to what the movie's production notes call Dalí's "bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism." Hey, beats a bite in the neck.

Little Ashes opens in late March.
– Stephen M. Silverman