Vampires, ‘Transformers’, singing high-schoolers: They can all be tough to outrun. But at the 65th annual Cannes Film Festival, a number of young Hollywood stars are attempting to do just that. By striking out on their own, they hope to move their careers beyond mega franchises and toward more mature roles in bolder films. Robert Pattinson (‘Twilight’), Kristen Stewart (also ‘Twilight’), Shia LaBeouf (‘Transformers’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’) and Zac Efron (‘High School Musical’) all have films in competition at the French Riviera festival. In David Cronenberg’s Don DeLillo adaptation ‘Cosmopolis,’ which is to premiere at Cannes, Pattinson stars as a Manhattan billionaire on a crosstown odyssey. Certainly, most actors would eagerly jump at the chance to star in well-paying, hugely promoted movies. But iconic roles begun as teenagers can choke promising acting careers. Stewart, Pattinson’s 22-year-old ‘Twilight’ co-star, is also expanding into new territory at Cannes with Walter Salles’ anticipated adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’ Earlier in the festival was LaBeouf’s ‘Lawless,’ a Prohibition-era gangster film. Lee Daniels will bring his ‘The Paperboy’ to the festival, the director’s first film since the hit “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.” Efron, 24, co-stars as the younger brother of a reporter (Matthew McConaughey) who’s investigating an inmate on death row (John Cusack). Efron, Stewart, LaBeouf and Pattinson will get no better launching pad for their new roles than Cannes, where daring is prized above all other attributes. “There’s no point in being scared of just trying,” says Pattinson. “The worst that can happen is just failure, right?”
