Robert Pattinson Says He Was Joking About Bestiality in New Movie: It 'Spiraled Out of Control'

Robert Pattinson says he was just kidding around about being asked to perform bestiality in his new movie Good Time.

The actor made the joke Thursday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he said he refused his director’s request to act out a very NSFW scene involving a dog. Pattinson’s comments soon went viral, even eliciting praise from the animal rights group PETA, which thanked him for declining to participate.

Now, the actor, 31, is trying to set the record straight. “The story I told on Jimmy Kimmel last night seems to have spiraled out of control,” he said in a statement. “What didn’t come across is that this was supposed to be a joke. No one at all expected or assumed that anything like that would happen on the Good Time set.”

He continued, “We are all huge animal lovers and would obviously never do anything to harm an animal. Everyone involved in Good Time are amazing professionals and have come together to make a movie that I’m extremely proud of. I feel embarrassed that in the moment, I was trying to make Jimmy laugh, only to create confusion and a false impression.”

Pattinson, 31, plays the role of Connie, a New Yorker who will go to all sorts of measures to save his brother and resorts to robbing banks. The actor revealed that his character also happens to have an affinity for dogs, putting Pattinson in a tricky situation on set.

“Oh, God, I don’t know if I can say this. There’s a lot of things in this movie which really cross the line of reality. It’s not even on the line, it’s way beyond the line,” Pattinson said on the talk show. “There was initially this scene — I don’t think I should say this — but it’s like, my character, Connie, has this affinity with dogs. He thinks he is a dog in a previous life and he thinks he has control over animals and stuff.”

A drug dealer then busts into the room where Pattinson’s character is performing a sexual act on the dog.

The Twilight star burst into laughter when recounting the scene to Jimmy Kimmel, saying that the “director was like, ‘Just do it for real, man! Don’t be a p–!’ And then the dog’s owner was like, ‘Well, he’s a breeder, I mean, you can.’ He’s like, ‘You just gotta massage the inside of his thighs.’”

In the end they went with a more staged approach.

“I didn’t agree to do the real one, so we made a fake red rocket,” he revealed. “It was fun. It’ll be on the DVD extras.”

“Wow, Hollywood is a great place folks. It really is. If you get a chance to send your kids to film school,” Kimmel teased.

The indie drama received a six-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, ET reported, and hits select theaters Aug. 11.