The Twilight World

USA Today’s Whitney Matheson recently interviewed Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning for the Runaways at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX.

Before we hop to it, perhaps I should set the scene: This conversation took place in a hotel conference room, where the two stars were brought in by several publicists and bodyguards. Stewart spent much of the time doodling an octopus on a legal pad. After eight minutes, they were escorted out of the room.

Our chat is below. Kristen took her octopus on her way out.

Me: Well, since we’re at South by Southwest, one thing a lot of people want me to ask is what music you’re into right now.

Stewart: Right. I listen to The Shinsand Radiohead and Interpol. And we saw Band of Horses last night, and that was awesome, because they’re, like, my favorite band right now. I love Camera Obscuraand Jenny Lewis. I’m just pumping ‘em out — I never do this! I’m always like, “Oh, I don’t answer that question.”

Me: It’s a hard one.

Fanning: I really hate that question. It scares me, it makes me nervous. Because I think people judge you a lot on the music that you listen to.

Stewart: It’s so defining. Which is why people want to know, because it does say a lot about you.

Fanning: They want to categorize you.

Me: Well, those are good. And you saw Band of Horses, I almost went to that show.

Stewart: And Broken Social Scene. You seriously missed out. The chick from Metriccame out and played one song with them. A long, anthem-y-type thing … it was awesome.

Me: Oh, well. OK, next question! This is from Lauren: Would you ever consider being in a band yourself?

Fanning: I don’t think so. I can only sing or perform if I’m playing a character and able to hide behind that character, so I would be too afraid to do it as myself.

Stewart: I love music so much. I play guitar, and I love playing it with my friends. But I hate the idea of something that’s mine … I’m used to making movies and having people take that from me. But to have my thing be somebody else’s experience right now … I could never be in a band. I feel the same way. I could only ever do that playing someone else.

Me: So you’re not going to release an album?

Stewart: Oh, no.

Me: Here’s one from Lynn: How much did the costuming, makeup, etc. help in the process of channeling these awesome female rockers?

Fanning: I think it helped me a lot, just because Cherie’s costumes are so out there and unique to her. Even the way the clothes were made back then, just because a lot of the stuff was vintage — just that feeling was really cool to have. I loved getting to see a picture of her and then look like that. I’ve always wanted to play a real person, so it was neat for me.

Me: Julissa asks, if you were to form the ultimate rock band, with musicians from today and of the past, who would you include?

Stewart: Oh, no. I answered the music that I listened to! I can’t even begin to try to make a band in my head. (Laughs)

Me: Do you have an all-time favorite guitarist?

Stewart: I don’t. I really actually don’t. It would take a really long time for me to think of the kind of band I’d wanna make, how they’d complement one another … it’s too loaded.

Me: Well, let’s move on to one from Tom: What’s the coolest stuff you’ve gotten from fans?

Stewart: I got a really cool jacket once. And I was freezing, so I really needed a jacket. That was really nice.

Fanning: I always get really cool gifts from Japanese fans. They always send me really cute things you can’t find in America. They’re usually Hello Kitty, and I love Hello Kitty, so …

Stewart: You do?

Fanning: Yeah.

Stewart: OK. That’s so funny. (Laughs)

Fanning: And you know, like stationery stores that have the walls of pens and things like that? I love that kind of stuff …

Stewart: You are Japanese.

(A publicist tells me we have a minute left)

Me: Caro wants to know if you watch your own movies.

Stewart: I kind of wish that we’d went to (the Austin Runaways screening).

Fanning: We’ve seen it five times.

Stewart: But I wish we went to that one because we heard it was really great, it was a real audience. It wasn’t movie people. Some actors are like, ‘Oh, I don’t watch the movie.’ But I have to see what happened. I have to see what we did.

Fanning: I look forward to it.

Stewart: Yeah, me too. I have to see everything done. But usually it’s hard for me. And it’s hard for me to watch this, too — like, there are parts that make me wanna kill myself. But I love the story so much. And I love the music. So I like to watch it.

Me: You know, most of the questions I got for this interview were from women, which I think is great. What do you think about that, and have you noticed a difference between theTwilight fans and Runaways fans?

Stewart: They’re both widely female, which is unique in the business because everyone says — and it is true — there’s not a whole lot of material for a female-driven audience. I would say they’re kind of similar … It’s empowering to read these stories. I feel like both of them are very bold girl stories.

Me: Thanks, guys.

Girls strip off for him, fans mob his set, but the sweet little star of Twilight, and the world’s most wanted man, still struggles with his sex scenes!

Would I like to interview Robert Pattinson, the world’s hottest young actor? Yes, obviously — although getting close to the boy who plays the “devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful” vampire Edward Cullen in Twilight at first seems virtually impossible. Penned away in the Dorchester, like a rare Siberian tiger cub — he can’t stay at home in Barnes when he comes back from LA because the fans know where he lives — he is being firmly guarded by a brace of film execs when I arrive for the interview.

A spiky PR woman for his new film, Remember Me — a romantic drama memorable mainly for the fact that it has Pattinson in it and is not a Twilight film — loudly repeats instructions that there are to be “no personal questions”. A Spanish reporter returns from the interview room claiming that when she asked him if he liked cooking, she nearly got thrown out. Another, a Brazilian, reveals that, in fact, he did get thrown out of an interview with Pattinson’s Twilight co-star and rumoured girlfriend, Kristen Stewart, back in Sao Paulo, for asking about boyfriends. “Her bodyguard asked me to leave,” he shrieks. “I said nao! And then he tosched me on the shoulder, and I said, ‘Okay, I go.’”

I decide to dive in and ask him about Stewart. Does he believe in love at first sight? “Yes,” he says. Has he… ever been in love? “Ah, yes, I think so.” “What’s…” Nick looks up from his BlackBerry. “Let’s keep to the film,” he snaps. Pattinson looks embarrassed, but the moment has passed, and I am to leave. He gets up and gives me a kiss on the cheek: light and soft and not at all unfresh. I read somewhere one girl’s parents paid £20,000 in a charity auction for one of those.

“Like, who the ferque is this diva?” says someone else, and by the time I am ushered next door to meet him, I’m thinking the same. But as soon as I clap eyes on him, and take in that kittenish smile, the tousled, leonine eyebrows and — of course — the lush whip of unwashed hair, all that instantly vanishes. Pattinson is calm, polite and pleasant: heaven on a stick.

Swigging nonchalantly from a large bottle of Hildon like Stoli at a Facebook house party, he is also utterly oblivious to the commotion outside. And as for being a diva, well, let’s just say his agent, a jaded LA type who sits in the room with him, is far from impressed with his attempts so far, rolling his eyes when Pattinson asks: “Nick, am I a diva?” The actor furrows his brow. “I mean, I had a very diva-ish conversation with some people about some stuff in this film about a day ago…” Nick sighs and drawls: “He just said what he thought in a script meeting. Please don’t use that as an example.”

“But I was very… bold,” protests Pattinson. Of course, that is exactly what he isn’t, because ever since his first knicker-melting appearance in Twilight, Pattinson, 23, has become a byword for shy hotness. Formerly a public-school hoodie from southwest London with a bit part in Harry Potter, he now commands £8m a movie and is such a huge lust object that he is unable to go anywhere unattended. During the filming of Remember Me, “3,500 people turned up and went completely mental”, he says. He is constantly asked for kisses and autographs, and recently, when he joked that the best way to get his attention was to take your clothes off, to his horror one girl in the audience promptly did so. Does he find the attention irritating? He shrugs. “I guess it’s part of your reality,” he says, before admitting he’s a “little bit harder to deal with” now. “I get stressed out much quicker.”

Then again, being beautiful “is quite hard”, even though he insists that 50% of people don’t get his appeal: “They’re like, what’s that all about?” Certainly, today, he is trying his best not to be beautiful, in a greasy cap and sweats. Only his eyebrows seem manicured, although he insists they aren’t. He had them plucked on the first Twilight film, but “you get to the point where you think, ‘Okay, I look like a transvestite now’”. Not that the girls — Twilight’s obsessed fans are called Twi harders, and a documentary, Robsessed, has been made about them — were put off.

Over the past 18 months, the actor has been linked to countless models and actresses, and recently appeared to confirm the rumours that he was dating Stewart, but then mysteriously claimed that he was “allergic to vagina”. Er, what was that about? Is he dating Stewart then? Or is he, in fact, gay? I heard his two older sisters used to dress him up and call him Claudia when he was a boy.

Actually, he’s “straight”, he says. He found the male-on-male sex scenes he had to perform in a film, Little Ashes, last year “strange. I played Salvador Dali. We were both straight, but he was Spanish, so much more confident about being naked and stuff, although when it comes down to it, it’s just as awkward with a girl, especially if you are straight and with a girl you don’t like… Anyway, Javier was really cool. After we had been pretending to have sex on this balcony in Barcelona, he was like, ‘We have such a strange job…’”

Poor Pattinson! Eyeing the bed in his suite, I dare a question about those sex scenes with girls. He famously had to pop a Valium to get through the audition for Twilight, in which he needed to make out on a bed with Stewart. For the love scenes in Remember Me, his co-star Emilie de Ravin “was very, very, very comfortable”, he sighs. “I’m always the one who’s the most uncomfortable. So we came into the room, and they said ‘It’s a closed set,’ blah, blah, and we got on to the bed and the director was like, ‘I got you these things, if just maybe you wanted to use them. You don’t have to use them, maybe it will make you more comfortable.’ They were these bondage things: lube and handcuffs and porn videos. It was so funny!

”And when you end up doing it, you have this little patch on your privates. I didn’t really tape it up properly, so I’d spent so long taping it round myself and then literally it falls off within one second and it’s taped to the sheet. And you realise the whole crew are looking directly at your butt crack.” He blanches. “I can’t think of anything exciting for them about this. It gives you a lot of respect for porn stars.”

Volturi tracker extraordinaire Charlie Bewley aka Demetri of The Twilight Saga:New Moon, spoke in detail withIdol Magazine about all things human and vampire, and he finally let’s us in on if he’s team Jacob, Edward or Volturi.

IDOL: So Charlie, how does it feel to be the ‘Jesus’ of the Volturi Guards? (Demetri has been nicknamed as such by Twi-hard fans)

Charlie: Jesus? My God, well when your bestowed with these fantastical powers… it’s wonderful to be an actor in that situation where you know there’s nothing to be afraid of and you exist as your character, there’s a certain nonchalance, a certain arrogance that comes with that, you pretty much do what you want with it, it’s great.

IDOL: Do you think that arrogance has rubbed off on you in real life?

Charlie: No! Do you think so? No, I went through my arrogant phase, I was an arrogant little crap when I was younger. I think that’s behind me now.

With the role of Demetri, there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, I’ve always been confident with the person that I am, and it’s done really well for me I like to think. With Demetri, yeah there’s arrogance there because they’re so elitist in the Volturi, there is that arrogance, there is that sense that no one has a chance.

IDOL: We call them the vampire mafia.

Charlie: You call them that? I call them that!

IDOL: We’re on a wavelength

Charlie: Yeah, you read that didn’t you.

IDOL: I read a lot of things, but that came out my own amazing brain.

So, on the lines of Demetri’s character, in the book he comes across as polite and calm but manipulating at the same time, is that something you had to portray in the movie? Was it difficult to get that balance?

Charlie: No it wasn’t difficult to get that balance. You’re right. Demetri and Felix have this great relationship, Felix just wants to fight, Demetri’s quite lazy. I think that’s the way it’s always worked, they were the ones who always used to go out and sort out the other ones. Was that hard to play? No, the danger was very apparent to the vampires, with red eyes, they’re very cool looking. So what you’ve got to do is play it nice and there’s always this undertone of danger to someone who looks like that. I could take those contact lenses out and be a normal person, as soon as you put those contact lenses in, I can’t tell you. I could smile and it would be even scarier

IDOL: We hear that you’ve been working on a new film, Ecstasy, how does your role in that compare with your role in the New Moon?

Charlie: Well as Demetri goes around Italy, killing innocent tourists, I play an alter boy, so it’s a bit different. It was a lot of fun to do. It was a great experience. In terms of the two characters there is zero parallel between them.

IDOL: If you weren’t playing Demetri in New Moon, which character would you most like to play?

Charlie: In the Twilight saga? I’d like to play Jacob. I think he’s got a great character there I really do, just the physicality. I’m team Jacob.

This past Friday night as we all know, tons of different outlets held their own personal New Moon midnight DVD parties, and Twilight Sagascreen writer Melissa Rosenburg was present at the New Moon party at Fred Meyer in Seattle, where she spoke about the topic on everyone’s lips: Breaking Dawn.

How do you condense an 800-page book into a two hour movie?

MR: “Very carefully. You start with, and you end with, what is the emotional journey for these characters. That is the most important thing to capture, that is the only thing to capture. Everything else is up for grabs, but you must take these characters on the same emotional journey that they took in the book, and hence take the audience on the same emotional journey that they took in the book and that’s the goal, you hope that you achieve that. some people would say I did, some people would say I don’t.”

Do you get any feedback from the fans when you, for example.. cut certain scenes?

MR: “I have a fan site, and the fans will weigh in and say wow! you’ve cut too many things out.. or say I’ve done a fantastic job. They are very kind on my site, there are other sites I know that I don’t read, because I can’t handle that kind of intensity. You can’t make all the fans happy, you try to make as many as possible happy.” 
How is that going to be a challenge for the last one? (‘Breaking Dawn’) because as you know, that’s the big one.

MR: “It’s the big one, it’s gonna be a big challenge, and I guarantee you that not all of the fans will be happy, and I guarantee you some of them will be.
You have to give up the ideal of making everybody happy, it’s just not gonna happen, but you hope you make the majority happy. Again, for that last book it is about taking that specific character Bella on her journey. It’s a big journey, it’s a massive change for her, and you hope to realize that.”  

What did director Chris Weitz bring to ‘New Moon’ that you think was valuable to the series?
MR: “He was so good. He opened up the franchise. He opened it into this sweeping epic story. Twilight was a very intimate personal movie. it was a small movie, it had almost an independent feel to it. Chris made it into a beautiful spectacle, he really expanded it, expanded the world of it.”

Going back to ’Breaking Dawn’, how far along are you in the planning, with production coming up pretty soon?

MR: “It’s coming up very soon, it’s all deep into the discussions and working on the story, and figuring out what it’s gonna be… we’re deep in the middle of it.”

Any word on when it will “officially” be green-lit?

MR: “I don’t know, but obviously soon.. vampires aren’t supposed to age, so you know.”

Can you talk about the fan craze surrounding the main characters Bella and Edward, and how it’s carried over to real life for these actors? How do they handle it?

MR: “I don’t know how they handle it frankly, it’s a lot to have coming at you, I can’t even begin to imagine. I have a little bit coming at me and it’s almost too much. Can’t even fathom what it is like, I hope they get to have a semblance of a real life.”

Finally, can you give me one word to describe ’Twilight’ fans?

MR: “Passionate.. for sure.”

The Eagle-Tribune hade turen att få intervjua Rob. ;)

Such is Robert Pattinson, the 23-year-old English actor who plays vampire Edward Cullen in the "Twilight" series, and who turns out to be a very gentle and seemingly normal guy. His between-ghoul gig, alas, is playing the conflicted Tyler Roth in the Allen Coulter-directed drama "Remember Me," which opened March 12.

He recently took some time out from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about his latest film and his blood-sucking alter ego:

Q. Did you pick this project just to counter your Edward Cullen image?

A. That was one of the reasons. But there was also something different about the script that stayed with me. It was odd — you wonder why it was written, what happened to the writer, what elements are true. And it seemed like I could spend the summer in New York and it would be really nice after all the pandemonium.

Q. Pierce Brosnan, who plays your father, was James Bond for four films; you've got a four-film franchise. You ever talk about that?

A. Not really, but he was great, zero pretense, completely comfortable in his own skin. The first time we went out to dinner, there were people at another table looking at him, so he went over and introduced himself and suddenly everyone was much more comfortable.

Q. They were looking at him and not you?

A. They had no idea who I was. It was an old French restaurant on the Upper West Side. Someone said, "Is this your son?" And Pierce said, "Yes! This is my son. ..." He was really fun to work with.

Q. There are only four "Twilight" novels; the third film comes out in June. It seems like you're in the homestretch.

A. That's why I was never particularly worried. They'll do the last one at the end of the year, and that's it. Done. And because I didn't start when I was really a kid, I don't feel like I'm losing anything or selling my childhood. It's such a funny thing to have gone through. It's such a supernova. It exploded so quickly, and then it's finished.

Q. How do you refashion yourself after that?

A. I'm making "Bel Ami," which is based on a Guy de Maupassant novel. I play a con man who seduces his way up the social ladder, betrays everybody. Anybody who does him a favor, he stabs in the back, and then he gets rewarded for it in the end. He's a real menace to society. It's a completely different experience from what I've done before.

With so many female-driven films and strong roles at this year’s fest, and in the spirit of the opening night film, we’ll be profiling some of the
most kick-ass females representing at SXSW this week. Next up: Skateland star Ashley Greene.

Like many of her cast mates, 23-year-old actress Ashley Greenehas enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity thanks to her involvement in the Twilight films, in which she plays the cheery, pixie-like vampire Alice Cullen. And, like many of her co-stars, Greene has taken advantage of her newfound
celebrity to pursue non-Twilight projects between filming on New Moon, Eclipse, and the planned franchise finale, Breaking Dawn. One of those projects was Skateland,
a Texas-set coming-of-age drama set at the beginning of the ’80s, in
which Greene plays the best friend to actor Shiloh Fernandez’s lost
protagonist, Ritchie Wheeler.

For Greene, the role of Michelle was a chance to stretch as an actor, to exercise muscles she hadn’t
been given the chance to explore in her pre-Twilight days. Fans who have only seen Greene as Bella Swan’s perky BFF should enjoy watching her take the lead in Skateland,
in which she’s asked to riff with her male co-stars, express subtle
emotional beats, and play out a tender love scene with Fernandez.

Cinematical spoke with Greene in Austin, where she was attending the SXSW premiere ofSkateland.

Cinematical: Tell us about your character and how you became involved inSkateland.

Ashley Greene: I play a character named Michelle Burkham. You start out seeing her as a girl-next-door character, but as you watch the film you learn she has
an edge to her. And that’s what I really liked about her; she does have
vulnerability and she’s compassionate, but she’s got a sass about her
and she’s a very strong character. Those are the qualities that drew me
in about her. Throughout the film you see her as the best friend of
Ritchie Wheeler, who the story centers on, and she becomes a love
interest. She’s the one that’s there pushing him, saying ‘You can be
more,’ and making him understand that he needs to believe in himself.
And when Skateland closes, everyone’s thrown into turmoil and forced to
reevaluate themselves and Texas and their situations, and she’s
definitely one of them. She’s one of the go-getters in the film, and I
really liked that.

Cinematical: Skateland is set in a roller skating community in the ’80s. How did you get into the vibe of that particular time and place?

Ashley Greene: I spoke to my mother a lot; I look so much like my mother in this, it’s
crazy. It was really fun. I definitely talked to her and asked her
about it, because I was born in the later part of the ’80s so I missed
out on it. She was into the roller skating thing a little bit. But you
know, my character doesn’t really get to roller skate as much, that’s
more a Ritchie Wheeler-Shiloh Fernandez kind of thing, but it was fun
to observe and be around. The thing about the character is, once you
have the rollers in your hair and you have the hair and make-up on and
the clothes, it really puts you in that place and you get to live in
the ’80s for a short period of time.

Cinematical: At what point between Twilight films did you make Skateland?

Ashley Greene: I made it directly after Twilight. After Twilight, I came right back to auditioning. Actually, Aquila/Wood Casting did Twilight and they cast me in this, so they were like my cheerleaders rooting for me.

Cinematical: You’ve also been working on a few additional films, outside of theTwilight world. What sort of projects were you looking for to do between films?

Ashley Greene: I adore Alice Cullen and doing Twilight, but because there are so many of these films you definitely want to
give a taste of something else in between so [fans] still see you as
Ashley Greene and not Alice Cullen. And so, during the breaks, that’s
what I was looking to do. Because Twilight keeps gaining
more and more attention, and it’s doing so well and we have this
incredible fan base that doesn’t stop, with each film that comes out I
get more opportunities to pick and choose, which is really nice. Now
I’m focused on showcasing what I can do and building longevity.

Cinematical: Tell us about The Apparition, your next foray into horror.

Ashley Greene: The Apparition is something I’m currently filming. We just got back from Germany this
week, we were there for about two months filming at Babelsberg Studio
and we start filming again in about a week in Los Angeles. The film
actually takes place in L.A. which is the funny thing about this
business, because we went to Germany to shoot it, we came back to shoot
exteriors. It’s a psychological thriller that centers around these two
characters, Kelly and Ben, who are played by myself and Sebastian Stan.
We play a couple who are haunted by a supernatural force and we have to
figure out what this thing wants. I definitely learned a lot of things
about myself while filming this… I read the script and loved it. I’m
so passionate about this project and my producers and director and
co-star, I’ve gone places as an actor I didn’t know I could go. So I’m
really excited for this one to come out.

Cinematical: What kind of scary places did you find yourself in during your performance?

Ashley Greene: I was terrified, and as far as just being vulnerable and sad and hurt, and strong… it’s not a horror film; we want it to be elevated and
scary along the lines of Poltergeist, so I definitely didn’t want Kelly
to be one of those scared, dumb girls in a horror movie. So we all
worked together, it’s been a huge collaboration in making these
characters really smart.

Cinematical: There seems to be an emerging trend in horror films of filmmakers shying away
from the so-called ”torture porn” subgenre and towards what’s called
elevated horror.

Ashley Greene: Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I look at a movie like The Strangers, and the scariest part about that movie is that these people do
everything that you would have done and that you wanted them to do, and
yet things still start happening. That’s definitely along the lines of
what we want to do, because that’s the frightening part about it.

Cinematical: There is a sense that one of the easier ways for young actresses to make a
name is to appear in mainstream horror films; is that something you’ve
been mindful of, or are able to choose not to do because of the clout
the Twilight films have given you?

Ashley Greene: Absolutely. I’m looking at The Apparation thinking, okay, this is a horror film; do I really want to go down that path? Because even though Twilight is certainly not a horror film, it is labeled a ”vampire” film and it
could be mistaken as such. So when I looked at this film, we had to
read through it, and I spoke with the director and producers to see
exactly how they wanted to go about the film. The fact that it’s as far
away from that mainstream horror film as you can get kind of relaxed
me, because I wanted to be a part of it but I didn’t want to be in a
horror film, so it worked out. But yes, I certainly think Twilight has
given me a lot of opportunities and it’s put me in a position and
enabled me to be able to say, no, I don’t want to do that film, and I’m
not going to do that, and I am going to do this. I’m in a very good
position.