Twilight
:
The Cullen Family
by Lynn Barker
 In
our quest to provide you with all things "Twilight", we had
a chat in Beverly Hills with the actors playing the entire Cullen family
(sans Edward.. check our interview with hot Robert Pattinson). These actors
have become a real family since their experiences shooting the first film
based upon the popular novels. Hey, they get together for poker night,
dinners and other Hollywood hijinks. Since these fun actors (Peter Facinelli
(Carlisle), Nikki Reed (Rosalie), Ashley Greene (Alice), Kellan Lutz (Emmett),
Jackson Rathbone (Jasper) and Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) were willing to
talk about everything from their favorite vampire films to answering a
fan knock at a hotel room door in a towel, we're just going to let them
talk to you....
AGW: What
favorite vampire movie or TV show did you all think of before you signed
on for Twilight?
Jackson: The
Lost Boys.
Kellan: Yeah.
Peter: Underworld.
Ashley: Interview
with the Vampire.
Nikki: "True
Blood".
Peter: I say
Underworld because that was my idea of a vampire movie before
Twilight. It was all fangs and gore and guts. When I read "Twilight",
it was more of a throwback to the Bela Lugosi, beautiful images and sensuality
and mystique which was what I liked about it.
AGW: Why does
everybody think that vampires are so intriguing?
Jackson: There's
a danger in that. If you can live forever, maybe you don't appreciate
the life that you have . What the Cullen family has come to realize is
that with their immortality, they've lost their humanity, the ability
to fulfill their lives.
 Peter:
I think it's the immortality and the sensuality of it all, that makes
it intriguing... for me and hopefully, for you.
AGW: Did you
guys see the fan's responses to your casting and do you read blogs about
yourself?
Nikki: (laughing)
I can’t look. Now I am Rosalie and there are posters and people
who haven’t read the books can read them and put my face to that
character but I think we all experienced a little bit of this. You know
when you’ve got 20 million people reading a book, each one of them
has their own (idea). It’s not like when you’re playing a
real person, like you’re impersonating somebody and so they had
characteristics and mannerisms that you can imitate. When you’re
playing a character in a book, everybody has their own idea of that person
and every single one is different. So you just have to come to terms with
it. You’re not going to be that for everybody.
Ashley: They
did a fantastic job in transforming all of us to look like the characters.
Nikki: Yeah.
I had the biggest transformation out of everybody. I actually dyed my
hair blonde and bleached my skin. Everything of mine that I associate
with myself like my mole; that was all gone. So I had to look in the mirror
and see a different person every day.
Peter: I think
we all peeked at the blogs because I remember talking about it and I was
like ‘Wow, they hate all of us…except for Ashley Greene.’
Ashley Greene they loved from the get-go.
Ashley: Aw.
Except I was too tall.
Peter: But
even with Ashley they would nit-pick and there was always something and,
like Nikki said, everyone has their idea of these characters. To Catherine
(Hardwicke)'s credit, she didn’t just say ‘This guy’s
blonde, he can play Dr, Carlisle.’ If you had blonde hair, you dyed
it brown. If you had brown hair, you dyed it blonde. Catherine had a vision;
these are the actors that have the qualities of these characters that
I’m looking for and I can make them look like the characters in
the book, and she did that. But, at first, because none of us looked like
our characters, they were against all of us.
 Nikki
Reed: Now, I think all the fans are pretty happy.
AGW: Peter,
you look really different (brown hair). Can you talk about your look in
this movie…the physical transformation.
Peter: We
did like a week of testing all the different kinds of makeup. The makeup
team was phenomenal and the actors were very patient. They had some kind
of gadget from Japan and it was like a spray ionizer. As they put the
makeup on you, if they touched you, you would get shocked. It was one
of the those things were you had to be very careful but, then again, it
was early in the morning so if you did get shocked, it kind of woke you
up a little bit. The makeup was part of the transformation but for me
it was blonde in a bottle. That took a good day at the salon. It was fun
to see myself looking so differently with the contact lenses, with the
light skin.
AGW: Peter,
what did your family think of your transformation into Carlisle. Did you
frighten them ?
Peter Facinelli:
No. They kind of like it. Except, when I first dyed my blonde hair, they
didn’t even notice. I came into the house, I had my blonde hair
and I said ‘What do you think?’ and they were like ‘What?’
It did nothing.
AGW: Any more
about the look of your characters?
Jackson: It's
more realistic in a lot of ways, not having normal vampire teeth and all
that.
Peter: That
was banned from the start I thought.
Nikki: There
was a time when it was just discussed.
Peter: All
right, (he makes hissing cat noise) Okay, Rosalie.
Nikki: I got
excited about what is separating us from (the look of) the kids at school?
You read the book and there are certain descriptions about the dark purple
under their eyes and their intimidating beauty and you get there and you
think, ‘How are we actually going to do this? How are we going to
put purple under their eyes and not have us look like a bunch of freaks
at school and how can we incorporate old clothing from the '30's and '40's?'
(To Ashley) you and I dealt with this a lot. We really wanted to bring
that element to it. But we just stood out too much. In the books, it works
but when you actually put it together visually, it was almost too much.
Ashley: Their
fair skin. We’re supposed to be these exquisite people but we’re
also supposed to be these people trying to fit in.
Nikki: We’d
lighten all our features up and then go and put make-up on top of it to
make it look like we're trying to fit in and then was that too much?
AGW: What
kinds of bloopers can we expect on the DVD?
Nikki: Ashley
hit a cameraman with a baseball.
Ashley: I
did.
Nikki: I had
to fly on the cables while I was running and it wasn’t until I was
up in the air that I realized that my arms and legs aren’t coordinated.
Like, I don’t know which arm goes with which leg when I’m
in the air.
AGW: No food
fights in the cafeteria?
Nikki: That
was not allowed. Hair and make-up would have killed us!
 Jackson:
We had the Cloud Dance though. We were fighting the weather and we can't
be in direct sunlight because of certain vampire tendencies.
Ashley: We
had to prepare for like four days at once for when we had weather cover.
If it was raining, everyone was running and there are some times, because
it’s Portland, it would rain and then the sun would come out and
then it would start hailing and the whole crew was always running around.
Peter: Yeah,
we'd go through four seasons in one day.
Nikki: There
was a lot of hanging out, a lot of contacts being stuck in eyeballs. We
had to pull contacts out of eyes. I was at the hair salon, I don’t
know if any of you have seen a photo of me as Rosalie but, yeah, it took
36 hours for me to become half blonde, that was just half of my head.
AGW: Any embarrassing
moments?
Peter: You’ll
have to ask Rob about embarrassing moments. His baseball stuff was embarrassing
(we did ask him. Check out our Rob
interview). He had never played baseball so it was very awkward for
him to squat. It was basically fun yet painful to watch him go through
that. But he finally got it and he looked great at it. To his credit,
he had a week to learn to play the game.
AGW: You mentioned
the contacts, were those painful?
Peter: If
you notice [Kellan] has very small eyes and they gave him contacts that
were like this (he holds up a three-inch round Voss water bottle top)
so you wanna stick this in your eye?
Kellan: And
I’d never worn glasses or contacts but my whole family has and they
told me ‘Oh, it'll be easy'. It was really tough. I wasn't able
to do it myself (put the contacts in).
Peter: We
had two people tying him down in a chair.
Kellan: Prying
my eyes open, saying 'think happy thoughts'. I don’t know what they
did but they got them in.
Peter: With
a crowbar.
AGW: Can you
talk about the wire work? Was it challenging?
Ashley: Wire
work was amazing. Super fun. It’s not that difficult to take to.
We rehearsed it twenty times…
 Kellan:
It’s tough for guys.
Nikki: It
was painful for me. You’re putting on this suit that’s like
15 pounds and then it’s like a girdle, you’re being strapped
into this thing and then you’re hooked up to like 40 cables and
then they go ‘Okay, ready? 1, 2, 3' and then they lift you into
the air and they’re like ‘Camera’s not ready’
and you’re just chillin’ in the air, dangling all of your
weight.
Ashley: I
think the first couple of takes were kind of embarrassing actually.
Peter: I didn’t
do harnesses stuff on this but I’ve done harnesses in other things
and I think the hard thing would be trying to look eloquent as you’re
like going through the air flailing around.
Nikki: Yeah,
I just felt retarded. I felt like I needed to have a conversation with
each one of my legs.
Ashley: You
actually had to run in it too and jump on a balcony.
Nikki: I have
some behind-the-scenes footage that's kind of funny. I felt a little silly.
Rob and I had quite a few laughs.
Jackson: I
thought it was kind of like getting paid to go to the amusement park,
fun!
AGW: Had any
of you read any of the books before you were cast and when did you realize
you were part of such a phenomenon?
Ashley: I
actually read the first one before my first meeting. I wasn't aware of
them before that but my management told me this is a really great opportunity.
It has the potential to be big. I read the book in a day and a half and
fell in love with it and read the second and third, just because I wanted
to so I get why people are so in love with it. When I finally got cast
in the part, I was ecstatic and cried. I didn't realize it was going to
be such a huge deal until we were filming in Portland and my mom was like
'Do you have a fan site?' and I'm like 'People don't know who I am' so
this is a pleasant surprise.
 AGW:
How did you guys bond to form the family dynamic?
Ashley: Peter’s
the daaaad.
Peter: I’m
the father. I'm the daddy. We spent a lot of time together in rehearsals
, a lot of time helping each other out. I think there's a bond there because
we all respected each other as actors and people but we all really enjoy
each other’s company. I mean, when I see them, they put a smile
on my face. I have a profound love, like a family love for all of the
Cullens and for Bella and for Jacob. When I see this cast, it makes me
happy. I just want to go over and give them a hug (the girls all go "awwwwww")
and I felt like that’s how it was when we were shooting. I enjoy
them. I truly enjoy them.
Nikki: We
have poker night!
Peter: Yeah.
Sometimes they come over and play poker.
Nikki Reed:
You know what, for baseball you taught me how to slide.
Peter: Yeah,
and Edward (Rob) too.
Nikki: That
was our bonding moment. I had a really hard time learning how to slide
and it was Peter. He acquired bruises all over his legs teaching me how
to slide.
Peter: It
was kind of fun because I always thought Carlisle taught the family how
to play baseball, brought that to them. And some of the actors didn’t
know how to play and I was able to teach them so it sort of felt like
Carlisle teaching his children for the first time with Rob and Nikki and
you (Ashley) were pitching. She had her own professional pitching guy.
AGW: Elizabeth,
can you talk about getting into the mindset of being a mother when you’re
clearly not old enough to be their mom?
 Elizabeth:
I think the backstory with me was pretty specific in the book, although
I have not read the fourth book yet, of her tragic life and Carlisle saving
her. She’s a really loving and warm character which is easy to conjure
up with all of these cute little nuggets (Peter laughs). I have three
nephews and I just thought about them a lot. It was kind of fun to have
Nikki call me "mom".
AGW: Have
you had any rabid fan encounters?
Peter: I think
they came to Kellan's room.
Jackson: I
think Kellan actually got a gift basket at his hotel.
Kellan: It’s
definitely great being Emmett and being a part of this amazing experience
of Twilight and having the fans. When we were in Oregon, somehow they
find our hotel rooms, especially mine and knock. I thought it was my castmates
because I thought we were all going to rendezvous, get some dinner or
something so I wasn’t fully prepared to answer the door and I just
got out of the shower so I was in a towel. Thank god I didn’t just
open the door like I usually do.
Peter: He
was expecting me. (laughter)
Kellan: I
heard a voice that I didn’t know and I asked who it was and they
were like ‘Emmett, we’re your fans’. I could just hear
them shaking and I was like ‘Oh God, hold on. Yeah, one second’
I threw some clothes on as fast as I could, opened the door and it was
two lovely ladies holding a giant basket full of goodies for all of us.
Ashley: Ladies.
Not, little girls.
AGW: So how
many nights did they stay there?
Kellan: (laughing)
They were staying in the room right across from me and I stopped by to
say 'thank you'.
Peter: In
the towel?
Kellan: (laughing)
No! I think they were there for three nights.
AGW: Has anyone
else had fan encounters?
Nikki: I had
a woman ask me if I could hold her baby for a little while because she
really wanted Rosalie to hold her baby. I realized later in the third
book, it talks about how Rosalie really wanted to be a mom and have a
very simple life. She never had the choice to become a vampire. This woman
came up to me and was like ‘You can hold my baby’ and I was
like ‘Okay’ and I’m carrying around this six month old
child for like thirty minutes.
Peter: You
were carrying it for a while. I was like 'Nikki You have to give the baby
back'.
Nikki: I didn't
know where the mother went.
Peter: So
we still have the baby. If you’re out there, please come get the
baby (laughter). I was in Hawaii, floating on this deck. You could swim
out to this deck and just kind of lay in the sun. I had my two-year-old
daughter just napping on my shoulder and some girl swam out there and
said ‘Are you Dr. Carlisle Cullen?’ in the middle of nowhere
in Hawaii and I said ‘yeah.’ It was really funny.
AGW: Have
you guys signed on for 4 movies?
Nikki: Three.
We’re signed for three. The fourth book wasn't out so it's three.
AGW: Did any
of your get any alone time with Stephenie to talk about your characters?
Kellan: I
think we all did. She was always there for us. Hey, what can I say. She
found my hotel room.
Peter: She
knocked on his door (laughing).
Kellan: She
was there for all of us and, for me, I had a lot of questions for Emmett.
There was a passage she wrote that I was looking at called 'Emmett and
the bear' and it really said a lot about Emmett and Edward's relationship
and how close they really are and for me to read that and it's not in
"Twilight", it really helped me distinguish that relationship
between them. Rob and I when we're acting, I really feel like we're brothers
and, without that, I don't think I'd have that connection. And, just talking
to her, she just gave me so much info.
AGW: If any
of you could have a special power like Edward or Alice does, what would
it be? And, what was it like working with Rob and Kristen?
Jackson: I
enjoyed my special ability. It was the ability to manipulate emotions,
calm a room of very hungry vampires like all of us. And working with Rob
and Kristen was just amazing. They really ignite the screen when they
were together. It was just beautiful.
Ashley: On
the powers, I got to have Alice's power (seeing the future) so I was pretty
happy with that.
Nikki: I think
I just wanted to be Alice.
Peter: You
get to be really bitchy. That's your power. Rosalie, that's her power.
Ashley: Wasn't
it whatever you were in your human life was enhanced?
Nikki: So
what did I have?
Peter: You
were feisty and beautiful.
AGW: Can you
talk about your upcoming projects?
Nikki: Well,
Kristen (Stewart) is my best friend. She and I are doing another film
together in January and it's called K-Eleven and it's in a section
of the L.A. county jail.
Ashley: I'm
going back and forth to Louisiana working on this film called Skateland
and it's the fun '80's so I get to have all the hair and make-up for that.
It's a coming of age type film.
Jackson: I
just flew back in from London filming a little movie called Dread,
a psychological thriller. Sean Evans is another cast member from Boy
A and Being Julia. It was actually a first time director
and writer and it was incredible. I got taken around the English countryside.
Didn't get to go into London much but picked up a few terms here and there.
Peter: I'm
doing a new Showtime series called "Nurse Jackie" with Edie
Falco. I play Dr. Cooper, another doctor. I've graduated from cop roles.
Now I only play doctors. It's quite a different doctor than Dr. Cullen.
It's exciting and it's a dramady. It's different in that Dr. Carlisle
is this calm presence, very knowledgeable and the patriarch of a family
and Dr. Cooper is just a nervous wreck; a guy who exudes confidence on
the outside but, on the inside, he has no idea what he's doing.
All pictures
courtesy of and copyright Summit Entertainment, 2008
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