If RPattz wanted to get as far away as possible from his squeaky-clean heartthrob persona, playing a scoundrel who sleeps his way up the ranks of Parisian high society just about did it.

Robert Pattinson's first post-Twilight venture—the period drama Bel Ami—has been attracting a fair share of attention in anticipation of its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival next month. If RPattz wanted to get as far away as possible from his squeaky-clean teen heartthrob persona, playing a 19th-century social-climbing scoundrel who sleeps his way up the ranks of Parisian high society just about did it.

Here's how Declan Donnellan, the film's co-director, described Pattinson's anti-hero Georges Duroy:

It’s about a very beautiful cut-throat young man who discovers he has got one commodity to sell. He seduces powerful women high up the tree of French society, mostly connected with the newspaper industry. He uses sex and their huge attraction for him to get to the top of the pile. It’s an unremitting world and in the end he gets the lot. So there are no consequences for him.

Bel Ami has assembled a pretty all-star cast, including Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott Thomas as Madeleine, Clotilde and Mme Rousset, the main ladies that Pattinson beds and abuses. And he beds them, alright. In graphic detail, if the reports of Pattinson's sexy buttcrack are to be believed...

The film hits theaters March 2. In the meantime, here are some new stills to whet your appetite, including a first look at rising British star Holliday Grainger, who plays Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter Suzanne:

Uma Thurman goes through the whole range of emotions, from seductress to possessed-looking widow. 

Kristin Scott Thomas as matriarch Mme Rousset. How many husbands can say that they've slept with both mother and daughter? 

Colm Meaney as Rousset, editor of La Vie Française newspaper where Pattinson's character works.