Stephen Merchant has admitted that he didn't want to cast Robert Pattinson in his new movie Cemetery Road.
Merchant is in the director's chair with Ricky Gervais for the pair's latest project that follows a group of friends growing up in Reading in the seventies.
The pair have cast lesser know actors because they didn't want one particular actor to steal the spotlight.
Merchant told The Press Association: "If you have a group of friends and one of them is Robert Pattinson, you're sort of 'This is a Robert Pattinson movie' where as we wanted people to accept they were friends so we had to find new people, and these were the people we found.
"Everyone forgets that when we did The Office, pretty much everyone, including Ricky, was kind of unknown.
"Audiences sort of accepted them as real people, and even with Extras, aside from the stars everyone was relatively unknown apart from Ricky so we've always sought out new blood and this was really exciting for us."
Despite having worked with Gervais on both Extras and The Office he admits it's an exhausting process working with him.
"I never enjoy working with Ricky, it's always an exhausting process. But, as you may have noticed, I have never had success beyond working with Ricky so you need to go back to the fold. I'm always drawn back in."
Cemetery Road is released 14th April.
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