Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson rose to fame together with the ‘Twilight’ movies. Stewart reflects on making the first film.
Although Kristen Stewart has been acting for most of her life, she never had any desire to be famous. In fact, she has shared that she would’ve been content making a modest living from indie films. But fate had other plans for the actor. She and Robert Pattinson both rose to worldwide fame and came into immense wealth after the staggering success of The Twilight Saga franchise.
Kristen Stewart initially had no interest in joining the ‘Twilight’ cast
surprisingly enough, when Stewart first saw the logline for the film, she was completely uninterested in playing Bella Swan. According to Stewart, the description of the film was very lacking. It wasn’t until the Happiest Season actor read the Twilight book that she was interested in being in the film adaptation. She fell in love with her character and wanted to bring Bella to life.
‘Twilight’ director, Catherine Hardwicke, built the film around Stewart
Securing the role of Bella wasn’t particularly difficult for Stewart. After Twilight director, Catherine Hardwicke saw her work in the 2007 flick Into The Wild, she was on the filmmaker’s radar. After inviting Stewart to rehearse and improvise scenes from Twilight, Hardwicke knew she was the perfect choice for the vampire-loving teen.
“At the end of it, I was just convinced,” Hardwicke shared about casting Stewart in Twilight while speaking to The New Yorker. “She’s Bella. She’s got to be Bella, because she keeps it so grounded and so real. I built the whole film around her.” Once Hardwicke knew that Stewart was her lead, her task became casting the perfect male lead to compliment her. She brought in several actors to audition opposite Stewart. But Stewart claims that she knew right away that Pattinson was the perfect Edward.
Stewart admits she and Robert Pattinson were young and stupid but approached their work on the film in the same way
“It was so clear who worked,” Stewart shared about the process of casting Edward in Twilight. Continuing on, the Spencer actor explained that Pattinson’s portrayal of the material was very much in concert with her own. “[Pattinson took an] intellectual approach that was combined with ‘I don’t give a f*** about this, but I’m going to make this sing.’” Stewart remembered. “And I was, like, ‘Ugh, same.’ “And, whatever, we were young and stupid and, not to say that we made it so much better, but that’s what it needed, and that’s what anybody playing those parts needed to feel.”
Although Twilight was innately a teenage love story, both Pattinson and Stewart worked to ensure that the movie was anything but a cheesy love story. Pattinson was hellbent on infusing as much angst as possible into his character. In fact, he nearly got himself fired because he refused to smile. Pattinson and Stewart even fought with the producers to get their interpretation of the film made. This risky decision seems to have paid off. The first Twilight movie has a distinctively emo tone that likely contributed to its success.
