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And he is a picture. He says he hasn’t bought any new clothes for this gig, and wears second-hand ones if possible. I wonder if he knows how attractive he is. “Good-looking? Noooo,” he says, grabbing tufts of hair again. “Before I have to go out to face a crowd, I stare and stare at myself in the mirror until I have to tell myself to stop staring, since there’s nothing I can do.” Because of the expectations? “Yes.”

What do his parents — a vintage car salesman and a former model scout — make of all of this? “It’s hard for them because they want to be proud of me, but I keep reminding them that it’s all luck. Luck is what got me here, nothing else.”

Luck, then, has got him and Twilight author Meyer the sign-off on the next movie in the franchise (there are four books in total), a move that, as today’s 16-year-old Twilight fans become 18, 20 and beyond, will make him one of, if not the, biggest male film star in the world.

First, though, his next appearance is as the young Salvador Dali in the biopic Little Ashes, a role he says he loved. The part he really wants, though, is that of Jeff Buckley, the doomed folk singer who recorded one exquisite album before floating off down a river one day and never coming back.

Having proved such effective teen catnip, he’s reported to have doubled his fee for the next Twilight from £3.4m to £6.8m. It’s hard to imagine him caring. Cash to spend on a house in a forest, maybe. “Yes, somewhere very remote,” he says with another giggle. “I’ll buy my escape from this world.”

Funny, since, of course, being so elusive will make us love him even more.

Twilight opens on December 12

SCREEN IDOLS

Rudolph Valentino Oh, how women of the 1920s were besotted with his “he-man” charm and aching vulnerability. His death at 31 from peritonitis led to mass hysteria, as 100,000 people made the pilgrimage to his funeral in New York. Others committed suicide. For years, on the anniversary of his death, Valentino’s grave was garnished with a red rose by an anonymous veiled lady, clad in black.

James Dean The quintessential 1950s rebel without a cause, Dean was the embodiment of teenage rebellion on screen and reckless hedonism off it. He had only made a handful of films before his death in a car crash, aged 24, which heightened the appeal of this androgynous star.

John Travolta The heart-throb of his day, who starred in 1970s classics Saturday Night Fever and Grease. He drew wild female crowds wherever he went. Once, on a visit to London, fans surrounding his limousine had to be treated for hyperventilation.

Rob Lowe Before that infamous sex tape threatened to shatter his career, the leading member of the Hollywood Brat Pack was the pre-eminent teen heart-throb of the 1980s. He remains the only man to have pulled off a mullet (in St Elmo’s Fire) and remained sexy.

Leonardo DiCaprio We fell for him in Romeo + Juliet, but he was propelled into megastardom by Titanic, the biggest grossing film ever. Mayhem surrounded the then 23-year-old, with girls fainting at the sight of him. When he goes out, he’s screamed at, so mostly he doesn’t go out. Unfortunately for him, his eco-campaigning makes him more attractive than ever.

By Mary Meyer

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