You know you are cool when thousands of teenage girls and middle-aged women frantically scream in delight whenever your face flickers on the movie screen. Such is the life of the Twilight superstar Robert Pattinson and teenage heartthrob Zac Efron. Well, Efron has grown up, and although he can still send the hearts of young girls into health-threatening excitement, his prepubescent understudy, Justin Bieber, has effectively replaced him as a boyish stud, and Pattinson's long run as best-looking vampire eventually will come to an end as the Twilight train makes its final stop with Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012). With their futures still unclear, where will these international heartthrobs go, and what are they going to do?
Since joining High School Musical in 2006, Efron's career has been defined by his role in this hit TV movie series, which was so popular that its final installment, High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008), was released in theaters. From 2006 to 2008, Efron only made one other film of note during his enrollment with Disney, Me and Orson Welles (2008), which surprisingly showed that Efron can, in fact, act. Since 2008, Efron has performed in only two films, 17 Again (2009) and Charlie St. Cloud (2010). Although the former is quite funny, it is hardly a serious project for Efron, and the latter was a lackluster romance about a disturbed youth. Efron's future projects are a familiar mix of comedy, romance and animation, all fields in which Efron has experience and all fields in which he has displayed average performances.
Whereas Efron has remained complacent with his career since his major breakout, Pattinson has been much more active in making his career multi-dimensional. First noted for his acting in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) when he played Cedric Diggory, Pattinson's career took off two years later when he snatched the part of Edward Cullen in the Twilight series. Although his role in Twilight has made him a rich man and placed him at the top of every tabloid's list of people to creepily stalk, Pattinson has managed to diversify his portfolio with side projects while still keeping a firm hold on his cash cow. Assuming the character of a nihilistic college student in Remember Me (2010), Pattinson showed he can play something else other than a vampire pretty boy, and he can do it with emotion.
This performance prepared him well for the much anticipated zeitgeist of the early circus world, Water for Elephants (2011). Pattinson not only brought more life and color to his typically pale complexion but also to the film. Playing an endearing college dropout who has been stricken with misfortune during the Great Depression, Pattinson has proved that serious acting lies in his future.\nBoth in their early to mid-20s, Robert Pattinson's and Zac Efron's good looks and popular roles have kept them at the center of attention. Unfortunately for Efron, the combination of High School Musical's fading relevance and his mildly entertaining recent films will soon make him a forgotten pretty face unless one of his future projects surprises everyone, which seems highly unlikely. Pattinson, on the other hand, will be seen later this year in Bel Ami, which may be his best film yet, before the final installments of Twilight take the world by storm. Pattinson has prepared himself well for life after Twilight, something Efron failed to do with High School Musical. Sorry Efron: RPatts 1, Heartthrob 0.
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