Harry Potter Star's Next Role: A Young, Gay Salvador Dali

Robert Pattinson, best known for playing Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter films, will embody a decidedly more mature, and gay, character in his next movie, according to the UK-based Guardian Unlimited.

The 21-year-old British-born actor is set to star in a “racy” and “sexy” movie about the supposedly gay affairs of Spanish artist Salvador Dali. The film, named Little Ashes after one of Dali’s paintings, is being directed by Paul Morrison, whose credits include the 2000 Oscar nominee, Solomon and Gaenor.

British screenwriter Philippa Goslett’s film, currently in production and expected to be released in 2009, follows the intense relationship that supposedly developed in 1920s Madrid between a young Dali, Spanish dramatist and poet Federico Garcia Lorca and Surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel. Spanish actor Javier Beltran will play Lorca while Matthew McNulty will take on the role of Bunuel.

The film, which depicts Dali as a sexually repressed artist who tries and fails to consummate his relationship with Lorca, has courted its fair share of controversy since it was announced. Many scholars suggest Lorca’s attraction to Dali was never reciprocated, pointing to a passage from Alain Bosquet's Conversations with Dali as evidence:

“He was homosexual, as everyone knows, and madly in love with me," Dali told Bosquet in 1969. “He tried to screw me twice... I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn't homosexual, and I wasn't interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it. But I felt awfully flattered vis-à-vis the prestige. Deep down I felt that he was a great poet and that I owe him a tiny bit of the Divine Dali's asshole.”

In her defense, Goslett told the Guardian Unlimited, “Having done a huge amount of research, it's clear something happened, no question,” she said. "When you look at the letters it's clear something more was going on there."

“It began as a friendship, became more intimate and moved to a physical level but Dali found it difficult and couldn't carry on,” she added. “He said they tried to have sex but it hurt, so they couldn't consummate the relationship. Considering Dali's massive hang-ups, it's not surprising.”