Punk Icon Patti Smith Wishes Robert Pattinson And Kristen Stewart Weren’t Famous

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart can now count the “Godmother of Punk,” Patti Smith, as a fan.

In a recent Entertainment Weeklyinterview, the singer-songwriter, activist and poet who blazed a trail in the 60’s and 70’s with an acclaimed first album Horses and songs such as “Because the Night” and “Gloria,” said the couple would have been ideal to play her and photographer, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, in a film adaptation of her best-selling 2010 memoir “Just Kids.”

There’s only one snag.

According to Smith, whoever eventually gets to play a young Smith and Mapplethorpe would need to be actors who wouldn’t cause a riot in Times Square.

“Robert [Mapplethorpe] and I were very young. We were 20. We were unknowns, and I think it should be unknowns in the film, and young,” Smith explains.

It’s perhaps not a stretch to see why Smith thinks a less famous Pattinson and Stewart would have been a perfect fit for the film. In “Just Kids,” Smith called Mapplethorpe the “artist of my life” and wrote of their intense, romance when they lived together during the late ‘60’s and 70’s in New York City.

That’s where the similarity ends though. During their relationship Smith and Mapplethorpe endured periods of poverty, while Mapplethorpe also struggled to come to terms with his own sexuality. Famed for his often explicit, stylized black and white portraits of nude men, socialites and artists, Mapplethorpe died in 1989, aged 42, from complications arising from AIDS.

Currently touring her latest album Banga, Smith shared her impressions of The Twilight Saga leads before performing at a private concert for Los Angeles radio station KCRW on Wednesday.

“I remember the very first time I saw Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson together, when they were younger, and I thought, ‘Those two kids could have easily played us when they were first starting’.”

“There’s something in his eyes. And Robert [Mapplethorpe] was also a bit shy, and a bit stoic. Kristen has a very special quality. She’s not conventionally beautiful, but very charismatic.”

Pattinson and Stewart certainly have the credentials to take on the roles. The 26-year-old Brit played guitar and piano from an early age and sang intermittently in a band “Bad Girls,” before stumbling into uber fame with Twilight. The actor also performed two songs — “Let Me Sign” and “Never Think” (which he co-wrote) — which featured in the first film in the franchise.

As for Stewart, she played rocker Joan Jett in the 2010 film The Runaways, performing her own vocals and guitar for the role. The actress also sang in the 2007 film Into the Wild.

It remains to be seen whether Just Kids will see the light of day anytime soon. With the script for the in-development film still being penned by Smith and Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan, Smith admitted she was finding it tough to balance touring and writing. The punk grande dame told EW she and Logan were “both really busy right now. That’s the kind of thing that has to be done at the right time.”

But even though fame appears to have counted out Pattinson and Stewart for Just Kids, the couple will be seen on screen together in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 when it debuts in theaters on November 16.