Robert Pattinson bonds with jumbo co-star

Los Angeles: It was not his glamorous co-star Reese Witherspoon but Tai, a 42-year-old pachyderm that made Hollywood heartthrob Robert Pattinson say yes to the period drama `Water For The Elephants`. The Twilight star, 24, was on the fence about taking the role of Jacob, a veterinary student who joins a traveling circus in the upcoming film, until he met his jumbo co-star, reported People magazine online.

"Rob was non-committal until he saw the elephant. "After he met Tai, he knew he wanted to do this movie. He absolutely adored that elephant," said the film`s animal co-ordinator Paul Reynolds. The adaptation of Sara Gruen`s bestselling novel, which arrives in theaters on April 22, tells the story of a love triangle that develops between Jacob, Reese Witherspoon`s Marlena, who is the show`s bottle-blonde star performer, and her husband August, the circus`s abusive ringleader, played by Oscar-winning `Inglourious Basterds` star Christoph Waltz. While it was important to the filmmakers that Pattinson bond with Tai, their chief concern was making sure sparks flew between him and Witherspoon, 34. "I saw early on that those two had a real on-screen chemistry. There was just this thing that happens between the two of them when they are together as those two characters that was very exciting," said the film`s director Francis Lawrence. PTI