Robert Pattinson had a lucky escape when he was bitten by a lion on the set of his new movie - the beast had no teeth.

The Twilight star plays a circus worker in Water for Elephants, and found himself shooting scenes with a variety of animals throughout filming.

And he had a nasty moment when a lion clamped its jaws around his arm - but the actor escaped unscathed because the "gentle" creature was merely being friendly.

Pattinson says, "Almost every day I'm working with an exotic animal... It's insane, like I got bitten on the arm by a lion with no teeth. They were like, 'It's fine, he does it all the time.' And I was like, 'Erm, OK...' But they had to get him to do it harder, because he was being so gentle and just licking my arm."

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