SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- Robert Pattinson knows he's in a precarious place. He makes teenage girls scream, but so do spiders, new shoes and the Jonas brothers.

If you're going to carve out a legitimate career for yourself as an actor, you ultimately have to be more than the sullen vampire adored by tweens. Still, Pattinson is wise enough to know now is not the time to attempt to untangle himself from the Twilight juggernaut.

"I think it's still so young to me, I can't claim there is a low," he told journalists at a news conference yesterday when asked about the highs and lows of the past year. "I live an identical life, apart from being recognized, which is not the worst thing."

Last year, Twilight -- which grossed a potent $382 million worldwide -- eclipsed expectations at Comic-Con. And, if the lines of females camped out Wednesday night in advance of yesterday's panel for The Twilight Saga: New Moon was any indication, this year should prove similarly chaotic. (Not that organizers are complaining. Having a female-driven phenom front and centre at nerd-opolis furthers the idea that Comic-Con has grown as much more than a gathering place for basement-dwelling comic book collectors.)

"You can't plead ignorance any more," Pattinson said. "It's terrifying."

Problematically, Pattinson's post-Twilight career has stumbled somewhat. His turn as avant garde artist Salvador Dali in the recent Little Ashes was savaged by critics. And while he has been filming the drama Remember Me in New York, less attention has been paid to the plot than to the hundreds of squealing girls who doggedly pursue the British actor wherever he goes.

"I'd like to think that I haven't changed that much. When I walk in the street, I look down a lot more often."

In the sequel New Moon, which filmed earlier this year in Vancouver, the romance between sex-abstainers vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) and mortal Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is threatened by both a love triangle (created by Taylor Lautner as boy-to-wolf Jacob) and the Volturi, an ancient vampire coven. For much of the story, in fact, Edward and Bella are apart.

"He loves something too much and deliberately begins breaking it, which is relatable and painful," Pattinson said. "Everyone looks at Edward as this hero, but he's constantly being saved by the damsel-in-distress ... I never looked at it as being a vampire story. I try to eliminate (that element) ... It's just a tool to make their relationship a bit more fraught."

The upside for being relegated to a "supporting role" in one of the year's most-hyped sequels? "It's one of the most relaxing jobs I've ever done. It was stress-free for three months."

But Pattinson admitted he has become protective of the franchise as plans ramp up to shoot the subsequent chapters of Stephenie Meyer's quadrilogy: Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

Reading the script for Eclipse, which gets underway later this year, he said, "I find myself getting argumentative, which I'm not usually."

Nothing personal

There is constant speculation, of course, about the real-life rapport between magazine-cover magnets Pattinson and Stewart. So expectedly, personal questions at yesterday's news conference -- which saw Lautner seated between his two co-stars -- were treated like IEDs, with a Summit Entertainment executive throwing herself on a grenade lobbed about their off-screen chemistry.

Instead, Stewart, who at times struggles to articulate her thoughts in interviews, focused on the film at hand.

"It's a more severely emotional movie. It's not just about discovery or falling in love. She's a manic depressive, basically," said the 19-year-old L.A.-bred actress, sporting dyed black hair for her role as rocker Joan Jett in a forthcoming Runaways biopic. "It's a more mature part because she's older and she's got more to deal with."

Not surprisingly, she considers New Moon her favourite of the novels. "I feel after New Moon it's smooth sailing (for Bella) ... But in the second one, she's just lost."

Don't make him growl

It was a hair-raising prospect for Lautner: losing the coveted role of werewolf Jacob he originated in Twilight.

There were reports last year that the franchise's producers were concerned the then-17-year-old was too youthful and scrawny to convincingly embody the brawnier, buffer Jacob of New Moon who becomes Edward's rival for Bella's affections.

Lautner, though, managed to keep the gig after embarking on a fitness regiment to bulk up his physique. "When I was filming Twilight, I knew Jacob changed a lot ... so to portray that correctly, there was going to be a lot of work."

He hit the gym, got a trainer and subsisted on a high-protein, low-calorie diet. "It was a lot of work, but it was definitely worth it."

His hope, he said, is to not disappoint Jacob's rabid fanbase -- albeit within reason, noting one request he frequently gets from Twilighters.

"They ask me to growl for them, and I really don't enjoy that. That's for the fans: 'Please don't ask me to do that.' "

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