Robert Pattinson will soon be seen in a challenging role in the upcoming movie Good Times, yet another meaty role that seems designed to erase the heartthrob status that he collected with the Twilight trilogy. The English actor was an aspiring musician, skillful on guitar and keyboards, before he became an actor. So we asked him if music helps him with his acting.

“I used to do a lot of gigs, at least two gigs a week for years, from 17 to basically up untilTwilight came out. When I stopped doing it I really missed the feeling. But I think whatever part of your brain wanted to do music, I’ve kind of put it more into acting and you realize how to be more free in performances. I think it’s the same intuition you would use when you’re playing music. I thought of acting as an extremely separate thing to music. I really felt that the less I played I started to think about acting very, very differently. But I go through periods where I’ll be really obsessed with music.”