Robert Pattinson's road to fame nearly took a different route, as he revealed his very first film audition was for the 2004 epic Troy, before he landed the roles in Harry Potter and Twilight that made him a star. Speaking to The Independent, the actor recalled trying out for the part of Patroclus, Brad Pitt's cousin in Wolfgang Petersen's ancient Greek war film, only to lose out to Garrett Hedlund. Had he secured the role, his career could have kicked off years earlier than it eventually did.

Pattinson's actual screen debut came in Vanity Fair, though his scenes as Reese Witherspoon's on-screen son were cut entirely, before he found success playing Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter franchise and later became a global heartthrob as Edward Cullen in Twilight. Since then he has built a critically acclaimed career with directors including Christopher Nolan, David Cronenberg and Robert Eggers, and played the title role in The Batman. Notably, he has since worked with Nolan on The Odyssey, another adaptation drawn from Homer's writing, which has been better received than Troy was on its 2004 release.