The Stars of Twilight

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COFFEE
It's the unseasonably cold November of 2008 when I go to New York's Bowery Hotel. There's a young man sitting in the garden, wrapped in about nine black sweaters and wearing a wool hat, smoking cigarettes, sipping a latte the size of his head, and furiously making notes on a script in the bitter cold. I have read about teenage girls lighting themselves on fire in front of his hotel, but at the moment Robert Pattinson is warming his hands on a coffee cup.

Hello, I'm Jenny. I think I'm here so you can check me out.
"Okay. I'm Rob. Um . . . would you like some fries? With gravy?"

Allen Coulter, the director of Hollywoodland and a creative force behind The Sopranos, has sent me. He was thinking about doing this movie—it wasn't quite there yet, but I should "come meet Rob."

Rob. When he came to the United States, he slept on his agent's sofa and then got a small part in a movie called Harry Potter and the Something of Something, which grossed nearly $900 million worldwide. And then he made another one, called Twilight, which grossed $385 million in theaters and almost another $200 million in U.S. DVD sales. Box-office riches, like so much of the female population of this planet, follow him from continent to continent, nursing a raging crush.

Coulter suggested I do some rewrite work on Remember Me (for the record, there is only one credited writer, Will Fetters), the first American release in which Rob will portray a mortal, nonmagical, carbon-based life form of the earthly realm—Salvador Dalí, whom he played in Little Ashes, surely doesn't qualify. As Rob scribbles away on the script's pages, it's clear he is starting his own revision process.

Rob's face is constantly busy—especially his kaleidoscopic eyes, which are continually rolling and dilating, because he is always thinking. Over the course of that latte, he contemplates Jimi Hendrix, French fries, girls, art, beer, his cousin the philosopher, girls, truth, God, his dog, girls, and whether this week's stalker has followed him from L.A. I don't think he could turn his brain off if he wanted to.

Despite the legion of fans trailing him from hotel to hotel, laying siege to each like the Roman army, he is neither fearful nor cocky—he's hungry, curious, forever reaching intellectually. That may not sound like a big deal, but think of the context: Complete strangers want to fuck you, shoot you, be you, buy you, sell you, run their fingers through your hair, watch you have sex, hear you pee, eat chips with you, and kidnap you and stuff you in the trunk of their car. And you? You must know more, more, more about exotic tropical diseases.

Rob and I discover we share a mutual fascination with afflictions that maim and disfigure and disgust: He brings up cancrum oris, in which bacteria eat away at your face until you get kind of a window in the side of your head and the entire world sees your teeth; I mention cyclic vomiting syndrome, a condition in which you puke literally all the goddamn time; he delights in lymphatic filariasis, where parasitic worms burrow into your lymph nodes and can make your balls swell to the size of watermelons, forcing you to tote them around in a wheelbarrow.

We come up with a blockbuster hit movie, entitled Candiru Infestation, about a tiny fish that swims up your urethra and into your urinary tract and lodges in your cock with backward-facing umbrella spikes it shoots from its spine.

"Fucking brilliant! It could be like Finding Nemo!" says Rob. "And the little candiru is lost in the balls! Think of the soundtrack!"

BEER NO. 1
Fourteen months later we're in London. New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight saga, has set box-office records for largest midnight opening and biggest opening-day gross. Remember Me, Rob's young-man-in-crisis drama, has wrapped. He has 24 hours before he has to start rehearsals for Bel Ami, based on the Guy de Maupassant novel, in which he plays a bed-hopping social climber.

He is waiting to pick me up in the bar of my hotel. He has ordered himself a pint of beer and, remembering my beverage of choice, a Diet Coke for me. He has the lovely manners of the good son of a good mum.

He says he wants to take me to a particular restaurant nearby, "just a little out-of-the-way place." So out of the way, it turns out, that after wandering around nearly all of Covent Garden, we can't find it. He doesn't seem too surprised, really. Of late he's been getting lost a lot in his own hometown. But then it's been a couple of years since he's actually lived here, and London is confusing as hell anyway.

Considering alternatives, we peek into a crowded café full of the young and beautiful, but he recoils. A few minutes later, when we come to a tiny Mexican place, his hackles go up a bit. Hmm. I ask him whether, at this point, he's able to sniff out crazed fans lurking under the tables.

"Yes. Sure. But last time I was here, the guacamole was bad."

Rob has made no sartorial concessions to Britain's ugliest winter weather in 30 years. A button-down, light Carhartt-like jacket, no gloves. He does have a hat, perhaps the same one he wore in New York. I'm swaddled like the Michelin Man and I'm fucking freezing. He's cheery, unfazed, giggling away. It occurs to me that London seems to afford him a freedom he doesn't have in New York or Los Angeles. And a London night with deserted, snow-piled streets, after an epic storm that paralyzed Heathrow and shut down the Eurostar trains, is like an unbridled romp while going commando.

Without trying, we arrive back where we started, in front of the Covent Garden Hotel. Across the street there's a high-end sex-toy-and-bondage shop called Coco de Mer. I mention that I popped in there earlier (before the National Gallery, thank you), and I tell him about this insane S&M body-harness contraption they have that allows you to dress up like a horse and have a long tail.

"That's so English. I want to do this entire interview wearing it, from an equine point of view," he says, stomping the sidewalk with make-believe hooves. "Seriously. As an experiment in public perceptions. Is the place still open?"

BEER NO. 2
We're inside, at a warm corner of the hotel's Brasserie Max, and Rob is having another beer. We're talking about how he copes. "When I was 17 until, I don't know, 20, I had this massive, baseless confidence. This very clear idea of myself and how I would achieve success, which involved making decisions. I saw myself picking up the phone and saying 'Absolutely not' or 'Definitely yes.' Having control. Except you have to figure out whether the way you think at 19 or 20 has any value. And eventually I understood, with all that control, which was probably illusory, I wasn't progressing. So now I'm relinquishing a bit. I'll be a tiny bit naked. Except tonight I won't, because it's fucking freezing and my balls will shrivel up."

He may keep his balls covered in winter, but Allen Coulter says that during the shooting of Remember Me, Rob did bare himself: "It was about control, for him, in the beginning. But he wanted forward motion more than he wanted to protect himself. Really brave—especially for a young guy with a big target on his back."

Rob does seem eager to shed some clothing, to give up the reins.

"Shall we go see about that harness? Seriously, you eventually realize you can't make every single decision. I was always building, always protecting something. At the same time, I seemed to be losing the ability to move. I'd protected myself into checkmate. Even mentally." In that moment, he has a realization: "I can barely remember the last two years. Not like a haze of partying or anything like that. Just . . . it's been crazy."

There's been surreal stuff. Like the time at a charity event in Cannes when two attendees bid nearly $60,000 combined to have Rob give their daughters a kiss on the cheek. There's been scary stuff, though the idea he might truly be at risk strikes him as absurd: "I find it really funny—if I got shot, I would literally be in hysterics. I would be like, 'Are you serious? Jesus Christ, get Zac Efron! He's got more social relevance than I do.'" He's pretty sure there was some good stuff, too. "There was this one time with some elephants on a golf course in Barcelona . . ."

He drifts into a reverie. He gets amazed easily, and at the moment he's fixated on the mysterious green bar snacks. They're sort of like wasabi peas, but not. They're covered in chili powder and look like tiny tumors. He's eating every single one.

"Fuck, these are good. What are they? I want to snort them—they'd clear up my sinuses."

BEER NO. 3
Rob's hunger is more than merely metaphorical. He orders two entrees—the mini beef burgers with tomato-and-onion relish and the mini chicken burgers with mango chutney—along with another pint. "I eat so much, I'm like a compulsive eater. I've been eating room service, and I'm always really worried about it, so I choose like six things on the menu and eat them all."

He doesn't want to miss anything, which implies a hint of regret. He didn't always want to be an actor. He modeled. He's a talented guitarist and keyboard player who has toyed with following his older sister Lizzy into pop music. But he's a serious type, and his most serious aspirations involved political speech writing. "It's fascinating. You'd have two or three minutes to affect someone. Make them hear you. Get the message out and maybe it will echo. I quite enjoyed doing press for the first Twilight, because there was a similarity. But after a bit I was ladling it out. If you want people to listen to you, you'd better have something to say. I felt a responsibility to be fascinating. You're bargaining with the audience. Is this enough for them? And that affects the way you look at art."

Art. It's illogical to think he's not allowed to have ideas about it merely because he has helped a lot of people make a lot of money.

"Before, I felt like I couldn't break through anything, including myself. And now it feels a bit as though I've climbed along the side of my brain and am at least looking in. But I know it will take me at least another 10 years before I'm remotely satisfied with anything I do. But with acting you keep trying in the hopes you might be . . . great. But then I think, does wanting to be good or even great, or even just wanting to make art, cheapen the experience?"

I worry his head is going to explode. He answers questions with questions. Doors open onto more doors. This sometimes leads to trouble with scripts: Since he sees every character's point of view, he often needs some sort of distillation. The catch is that unless the distillation somehow encompasses every character's essence, it only causes his imagination to fire more wildly. It's the kaleidoscope-vision thing.

Some people can have the ocean in front of them and just put their big toe in. Rob wants to swim until he drowns, and he's going to try to drink it all up before he goes under. His striving is a source of worry because he can't really tell anybody he wants more: "Please don't make this about me complaining. Please. I'm the luckiest bastard on the planet." He worries he might be selfish. He worries maybe he's a nonhumanist-separatist-weirdo because his most profound moments have been with his dog. And he worries about whether he can be an actor who can reach the masses and still ask for anything.

"If it exists out there—this invisible-creative-spirit-idea thing—then you're the medium through which it travels so everybody can touch it. But . . . what gives you the right to be the medium? What gives you the right to claim it? And then get an agent and say I want $20 million and a fruit basket to be the medium, thank you very much.

"As an actor, you can elevate the human condition or cheapen it. I would assume it's the same with anything you do—you try to elevate and maybe someday you will." An actor may indeed have the ability to raise us, but Rob unconsciously starts speaking sotto voce each time he utters the word actor or any variation of it.

Rob, did you know that every time you say actor or acting you lower your voice to a whisper?
He's genuinely startled. "I do?"
Yes, so quietly it's like you're saying Negro.
He laughs, lightens up. "What if we were 'acting' like 'Negroes'? Then we'd be fucked—we couldn't hear anything. . . ."

BEER NO. 4
Rob asks the waiter for another beer. He's talking about an uncle who worked in a steel mill in the Yorkshire town his dad grew up in. Rob's father and his other uncles moved away as soon as they were old enough, but the eldest brother stayed there his whole life.

"They're bulldozing houses, whole streets of houses. And my dad asked him, 'Why stay?' He said, 'Who's going to look after our mom?' And I was just thinking, Jesus fucking Christ, there might be something wrong with my emotional sight, because I'm not sure if I could make that kind of sacrifice. The only emotional connection of relevance is with my dog. My relationship with my dog, it's ridiculous.

"I think you need to be able to break through what you think about yourself to try to make any sort of art. I used to play music all the time, and the most amazing part was the freedom that came with kicking myself in the ass, letting go, and surprising myself."

He tried to let go a little bit with the photo shoot accompanying this interview—it wasn't easy.

"I really hate vaginas. I'm allergic to vagina. But I can't say I had no idea, because it was a 12-hour shoot, so you kind of get the picture that these women are going to stay naked after, like, five or six hours. But I wasn't exactly prepared. I had no idea what to say to these girls. Thank God I was hungover."

Is your mom going to have something to say about it?
"Oh, God." He puts his head in his hands, shrugs. "Well, she quite enjoyed when I got her cable." It's not that Rob's mother now spends all night watching Skinemax in her London home. "No, no! God, no! It's just that there's nakedness all over the place now. But this shoot, it's kind of eighties nakedness, you know? If you look at porn in, like, the eighties, there was something kind of quaint about it, quite sweet—like this little naked community. The people who made it liked it, they had respect for it. Not remotely like the porn that's available now. No community in it at all. It's just everything, everywhere."

CANDY
In the U.K., Smarties are made of chocolate and are kind of like M&M's in weird colors like mauve and teal but somehow more delicious. Rob's not really a dessert guy, yet he's rapidly hoovering my last packet of Smarties. "Amazing. I've eaten like 5,000 of these already. See what you have to deal with?"

In Remember Me he plays a guy whose issues are eerily like his own. Tyler is a young man who has retreated into himself, but then he meets a woman, becomes conflicted, and has to choose whether to remain in lockdown or step into life and the world.

"Tyler is so aware of his actions. But he has no idea whether they're of any value at all. Can you be a person if you live in the bubble? He's stuck in the middle. At the same time, he's lucky to have the choice. Conflict is innate in a lucky person."

What attracted you to the role?
"I'm a lucky person. Thank God. And I'm conflicted. Thank God."

He tells me about a book he read called Eat the Rich, by P.J. O'Rourke (full disclosure: P.J. was married briefly to my sister, though Rob had no idea). He was drawn to a part that says something like: One man's wealth does not mean another man's poverty—and vice versa. Rob's slightly embarrassed to voice this idea.

He is unsure whether to feel guilty, to bask in it all, or both. Thing is, there aren't any rules for a life as extraordinary as his is right now. He tells me an elephant story. Not the one about Barcelona elephants—one about some he'd met recently in California.

"Did you know elephants purr? It's completely scary if you don't know what it is. They purr like cats, but their heads are so deep they sound like velociraptors. You feel it in the ground under your feet. So this big female started sniffing my foot—big female elephant, that is. She sniffed it so hard it came up off the pavement like her trunk was a vacuum cleaner. Then she took my entire body in her mouth. I was holding on to her head, and as I slowly let go she tightened her grip really carefully until I'm just upside down in her mouth and she's going through my pockets with her trunk, looking for peppermints. It was the best day of my life."

So you gave up control to an elephant, got groped, mugged, had your candy tugged at—and it was glorious?
"Yeah. So beautiful you can't imagine. And the baby elephant was so excited that it sprinted out and did its routine in five seconds and then curtsied to everybody. It was actually laughing. Brilliant. Did you know they can also do imitations of other animals? A horse, a chicken, a monkey—these elephants could, anyway. They were movie elephants. One had written a screenplay, and one really wants to direct."

He laughs. He was in Los Angeles, in discussions to star with Sean Penn in Water for Elephants, an adaptation of Sara Gruen's novel. The elephants are actors like him, and he wonders if he might, on some cosmic level, be a bit like them.

"Do you know how they die? The elephant guy told me their molars get ground down from eating wood but regenerate like six times. And after that they slowly starve to death. Which is poignant, but that must also be what gives them time to get to the elephant graveyard. They're incredibly designed creatures. I mean, people hang on way too fucking long. If I knew that when my teeth fell out, that was it . . . Wow. The best day of my life. Beautiful, beautiful day."

A few moments later, Rob announces he's going to get a cab home and excuses himself.

Can I walk you? I don't like you going out there all by yourself.
"I'll be okay."

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Following the November blockbuster release of "New Moon," Robert Pattinson has maintained a relatively low profile as he geared up to begin filming "Bel Ami" alongside Uma Thurman in Europe. That cloud of welcome anonymity is about to break, though, as the PR machine ramps up for another RPattz film release: the romantic drama "Remember Me."

In an interview with the Scottish Daily Record, Pattinson spoke of his paranoia about relationships, the eventual end of the "Twilight" series and some very intimate on-camera time he'll soon share with Thurman.

"The sex scenes with Uma are kind of disturbing," he said. "Her character kind of uses sex as a sort of weapon and my character thinks like an animal. There's a lot of sex scenes in this film, so I'm asking quite a lot of myself, and with lots of different people as well."

In "Bel Ami," Pattinson plays a Parisian journalist and playboy who courts his friend's wife (Thurman) and eventually marries her. Filming is set to take place across Europe, from London to Budapest.

During the interview, Pattinson also spoke about the frustration of planning his life around the "Twilight," as there's still no set date for production on "Breaking Dawn," nor any definitive word about whether the final book in the vampire series will become two films or just one.

"Not knowing when 'Breaking Dawn' is going to shoot — because it changes all the time — is a kind of burden, to have this thing where you don't know when it's going to happen," Pattinson said. "So you've got to organize everything in your life around that and that can be difficult."

Problematic as well is his increasing lack of privacy in his personal life, particularly given the persistent rumors that he's in a relationship with "Twilight" co-star Kristen Stewart.

"If you meet a crowd of people, a lot of times you think someone is going to say something, someone could be going to sell a story about you," he admitted. "The majority of times, nothing bad ever happens, but having that paranoia there is very annoying."

One story — or rather, one outlandish casting rumor — should now be put to rest. Any wish on the part of some fans that the rebooted "Spider-Man" franchise will star Pattinson as Peter Parker is just that: a wish, with no basis in reality.

"I don't think I'm going to be playing Spider-Man, even though I would quite like to do it," he said.

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As part of a roundtable interview, we talked to Kristen and Dakota yesterday in Park City about the film, how much they got to work with Joan and Cherie, and what they think people are going to say about their brief but incendiary makeout session in the movie. Kristen, who's known for being reserved in interviews at times was definitely feeling very vocal. Check out the full interview just after the break.

With The Runaways, how did you come on board? Was it the characters or the role, or did you know the music? What was the first thing that came your way?

Kristen Stewart: The script. I knew about Joan Jett, which most people probably would say. But I didn't know anything about The Runaways and I thought it was really cool to see a character that was so different from who she seems to be now -- very self assured and she really, really knows who she is. So I thought it was cool to see her become that and then see the relationship between her and Cherie and see how sweet that is. It is just an interesting story.

Dakota Fanning: Yeah, same for me. I read the script and wasn't really familiar with The Runaways either, and just loved the relationship between them and things that I would get to do while playing Cherie.

How did you prepare for this role versus, say, some of your other roles?

Dakota: Well obviously, there was the singing, for me, that I had to prepare for, which was kind of a daunting task, but something that, I think, adds to the movie that I actually did it. It wasn't just her voice, you know. So yeah, I had to make it just like hers, which was kind of intimidating.

Kristen: Well, yeah. We had to make sure that we looked right and moved right. They had really, when you meet them, fancy footage from when they were younger. They have such specific idiosyncrasies. They are very ... they are like riddled with little particular details that make them ... as we all are, but theirs are really interesting and they are really dynamic. I don't know. They are just cool like that. But, preparing for a movie is always the same. There is no difference. It is just a big responsibility here because it is not just somebody that you are making up.

Well, we talked to Cherie, who said she feels like she is living in a dream because you are playing her in a film, Dakota. And Kristen, Joan said you guys had very similar energy. How much time did you get to spend with them before and during the production?

Dakota: A lot. I mean, they were there pretty much everyday, and I spent a lot of time with Cherie before we started filming. And yeah, I think it was important that they were there, just to ... it is their life, you know?

Kristen: We didn't have a whole lot of time either, because in pre-production, rehearsal-wise, we had a good ... we had a solid two weeks. And then before that, I had a week with Joan, just like shooting the shit. There was like a period of, 'let's feel this out and see how much we are willing to delve into personal aspects of your lives and how much we are willing to, like, disclose ourselves.' But it was so nice, because they were actually not just open to any actor who might be playing them. But we really liked each other. Like, instantly ... the four of us were pretty, you know ... there was just something really special and it was cool.

Did you play guitar already or did you have to learn how to do that?

Kristen: Yeah.

What was it like putting that ... I mean a rock and roll electric guitar, it is a great big phallic symbol. What was it like sort of strapping that on?

Kristen: No, totally. In fact, I don't know if I can say this ... whatever. I mean you can delete it or not.

Go for it.

Kristen: Whenever I wasn't coming from the right place, she was always like, "Kristen! P*ssy to the wood! F*ck the guitar!" I was like, "Okay."

[laughter]

Kristen: So when you have Joan Jett telling you to f*ck your guitar ... Yeah, I liked it.

Empowering?

Kristen: Yeah.

[muddled question about sexuality -- listen here]

Kristen: It's more, um, Joan's at least, and actually Cherie's is definitely. They're dominant, absolutely.

Dakota: But they're different.

Kristen: Yeah.

Dakota: They're different.

Kristen: Yeah. But they had to fight to be ... I mean people like girls to be sexy, and they did then too, but in a completely different way. They didn't want to get f*cked. They wanted to f*ck them. And that is not what Joan wanted.

Do you think The Runaways changed a lot? Do you think things are still the same for female musicians? I
mean, was that part of your attraction to the role, the fact that it is about something that is still ... there is still a bit of a taboo about women doing the same things?

Kristen: Yeah, that was a huge thing, and especially for Joan. It is still such a huge ... I mean, Dakota was saying something earlier. We are girls that have both been brought up thinking we can do whatever we want and there are a lot of very empowered females. But it just wasn't like that then. And I think that people don't really realize that The Runaways were the first girls to play music like that. And it could have been someone else, but it wasn't. It was them. And so, it is, I think, an interesting story for a movie.

The Twilight franchise is a big thing, and you have a lot of young fans. This film is very descriptive and it shows a lot of stuff. Were you hesitant at all with the huge amount of people that follow you?

Kristen: I have a fan base that apparently, like, you know, people ... it is not that they look up to me. You have certain figures that they would like to be more like, and people really love Bella. I do too, but I am not her. I don't think anybody expects me to try to just, for the rest of my career, appease an audience that once liked Twilight. You know what I mean? I just think that that is crazy. I also ... it is always an afterthought. I will decide to do a movie and then go, "Oh, Twilight fans are probably going to react to this, or whatever." But that's always an afterthought. Like, I don't plan things out based on other people's opinions of how I think they are going to receive them. I do it for the experience.

Basically what I am saying is, I don't take that responsibility ... I just don't. I think that Joan's story is really something that you could learn from, and also Welcome to the Rileys. I don't believe in censorship. I think that both these movies are rated R and these kids, you know, if it is too much for them, then they shouldn't watch.

Do you think that is unfortunate, though, because Cherie said, "You know, that is just how it was in the '70s. Sexuality was ambiguous. That is how life was." This is going to be, for better or worse, one of those button issues people will talk about in this movie, the moment between you and Dakota. Do you think that is unfortunate because that is going to happen because of who you guys are versus who they were?
Kristen: People are always going to find the one sort of like weird, sort of buzzworthy thing about a movie and run with it. I don't think it has ... I don't think it's relevant. It's not a romantic relationship. They are like best friends and it is a love story, so it is sort of like ... it's a fleeting love story and they both realize that it's like, "Yeah, this is cool right now." But it's not like the big makeout scene in The Runaways is like ... they are just ... it's just something they...

Dakota: And especially when you read the script, like, it is not just a ...

Kristen: It just pops up!

Dakota: ...a big thing. It's like, "Okay, great."

Kristen: They even talk about it afterwards. It's like, "What happened? I don't even ... why did that happen?" And then, I think, it's cool. They don't go any further with it. It's like, "Yeah. That's it."

Talk a little bit about the day that scene was actually filmed. What was it like on set? Was there any discomfort between you two?

Kristen: We had done a song that day that was in the roller rink, and we had done "I Love Playin' With Fire," so I was way, way, way more worried about that than having to ... I don't know. I remember, like, kicking off extras that were trying to take pictures with their cell phones.

Dakota: Yeah, yeah.

[laughter]

Note: This interview was part of a roundtable that Cinematical took part in at Sundance 2010 with a handful of other writers. Not all of the questions were asked by us


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Ashley Greene is all about sexing things up these days — the Twilight star recently stripped down to nothing but body paint for a SoBe Lifewater campaign, and she's decked out in black leather and a see-through bodysuit for the February issue of Interview that hits newsstands next Tuesday. One of the photos is perhaps NSFW, but there's more Ashley hotness with a behind-the-scenes video on the magazine's website. Ashley responded to questions asked by her costar in the series Michael Sheen about scoring her vampire role, leaving Florida for LA, and her upcoming movie The Apparition.

•On growing up in Florida: "It was great. I mean, it was great until I realized that there was more out there. I went to a public high school with a magnet program for law and psychology. But right before my junior year, I decided that I wanted to leave and become an actress, so I graduated early and moved out to LA. Now that I’m here, I can’t imagine living there."

•On getting the role of Alice Cullen: "It was just another audition. My managers were like, 'You’re going into a great casting office. They cast great projects. They’re sticklers. If you suck, they won’t call you back in.' So I was like, OK, I’ll pay extra attention. Then I figured out there wasn’t a script or a breakdown, but there was a book. So I got the series and fell in love with it. Then that determination kicked in and I was like, OK, I’m going to book this part is what’s going to happen. I worked my butt off for it."

•On what it's like being at the epicenter of the Twilight craze: "It’s a really hard thing to wrap your head around. I was working at a restaurant, I booked the role in Twilight, put in my two weeks’ notice, got fitted, flew to Portland, filmed, and then it started getting hype. That helped me get my foot into certain doors before the movie even came out. I did four independent films during the break between Twilight and New Moon. I haven’t even really had time to sit back and process it all. But when you do finally sit back and think about it, it’s incredible."
 
Ashley Greene is all about sexing things up these days — the Twilight star recently stripped down to nothing but body paint for a SoBe Lifewater campaign, and she's decked out in black leather and a see-through bodysuit for the February issue of Interview that hits newsstands next Tuesday. One of the photos is perhaps NSFW, but there's more Ashley hotness with a behind-the-scenes video on the magazine's website. Ashley responded to questions asked by her costar in the series Michael Sheen about scoring her vampire role, leaving Florida for LA, and her upcoming movie The Apparition. Here's more:


•On growing up in Florida: "It was great. I mean, it was great until I realized that there was more out there. I went to a public high school with a magnet program for law and psychology. But right before my junior year, I decided that I wanted to leave and become an actress, so I graduated early and moved out to LA. Now that I’m here, I can’t imagine living there."

•On getting the role of Alice Cullen: "It was just another audition. My managers were like, 'You’re going into a great casting office. They cast great projects. They’re sticklers. If you suck, they won’t call you back in.' So I was like, OK, I’ll pay extra attention. Then I figured out there wasn’t a script or a breakdown, but there was a book. So I got the series and fell in love with it. Then that determination kicked in and I was like, OK, I’m going to book this part is what’s going to happen. I worked my butt off for it."

•On what it's like being at the epicenter of the Twilight craze: "It’s a really hard thing to wrap your head around. I was working at a restaurant, I booked the role in Twilight, put in my two weeks’ notice, got fitted, flew to Portland, filmed, and then it started getting hype. That helped me get my foot into certain doors before the movie even came out. I did four independent films during the break between Twilight and New Moon. I haven’t even really had time to sit back and process it all. But when you do finally sit back and think about it, it’s incredible."
 
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All I have to say is, she better do a damn good job and give it all she has if she's going she going to fulfil Rachelle's shoes.

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Last summer the proverbial something hit the fans when beloved "Twilight" star Rachelle Lefevre was shockingly dropped from the series, Golden Globe nominee Bryce Dallas Howard was announced as her replacement, and a real-life story line, as dramatic as anything in Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novels, erupted. But as the months have gone by, Lefevre has moved on to other gigs, Howard has received favorable reports from her new co-stars, and "New Moon" made a boatload of money.


On June 30, "Eclipse" brings the "Twilight Saga" back to the big screen with plenty of familiar faces, but a new one for Victoria. And when we caught up with 28-year-old beauty Howard, who stars in the new drama "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," she told us that she couldn't wait to unveil her take on Meyer's villainous vamp.

MTV: It's no secret that you entered the franchise under less-than-ideal circumstances. What kinds of things did the other actors say and do in those early days?

Bryce Dallas Howard: What's so great about that group of people is that they feel so genuinely blessed by this experience. Just by the response of the fans. But they've remained so grounded, and their friendships are genuine. I just felt really, really fortunate to get to meet all these wonderful people.

MTV: Kristen Stewart recently told us that you were "such a good actress" during the "Eclipse" shoot that "it was easy to be scared" of you. What were your thoughts working with her while she continued to develop such an iconic role?

Howard: Kristen is fantastic and so, so passionate about this role and this character. First, as a fan of the books it was such a relief to go onto set and see how seriously everyone was taking it. And, yeah, Kristen was incredible to work with, incredible.

MTV: You were a "Twilight" fan before you even got the role. In your opinion, which of Stephenie Meyer's books is the best?

Howard: I love these books, and "Eclipse" for me is [the best one]; I'm partial to "Eclipse." And that was true even before "Twilight" came out.

MTV: Tell us about your take on Victoria, as opposed to Rachelle's. What will be different? What will stay the same?

Howard: Victoria is a wonderful character. ... It's awfully juicy to play a villain. To play someone that's just evil; Victoria is evil. And I think with "Eclipse," it ends with quite a huge battle, a big spectacle, and it's very scary. It's a very, very scary book and very terrifying set of circumstances, and I think the Cullens are in jeopardy in a way that they never really have been before. It was a really, really exciting world to be a part of, because it was so scary and the stakes were so high.

MTV: Would you say you studied Rachelle's performance, to factor it into your own?

Howard: Well, I have seen "Twilight" innumerable times, innumerable. And yes, of course, I saw "New Moon" before doing "Eclipse," because the continuity of the character is critical, and Rachelle had done a really exquisite job creating Victoria. It was really important to base all of my work on that. She set a very high bar, and I wanted to reach for that.

MTV: In your mind, what were the critical elements of Victoria that needed to be maintained from the book to the script to Rachelle to yourself?

Howard: Well, the visual continuity of the character Victoria is really important, because such a distinctive character had been created, one that the fans and audience really connected to. She's described perfectly in the book. And that's really important to everybody, that there's an authenticity to bringing these characters to life that's not really an interpretation, just a true representation of what's been written on the page.

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Before I post this interview, I want to thank Gil for opening up and trying to share the Native heritage with everyone. I'm from the Choctaw and Cherokee tribes and I hold my heritage dear to my heart, so thank you Gil.

Twitter users are having fun discovering Native American talent thanks to the exciting New Moon spotlight of Native American characters. On the forefront is actor Gil Birmingham, Twilight's Billy Black. He's amassed an amazing 69,000 plus followers and has created much buzz on Twitter with his many public appearances. He created excitement at the Native American music awards in October and with the reprising of his Billy Black character in New Moon which debuted late last month.
Birmingham who is from the Comanche tribe, tells Examiner.com's Twitter Entertainment Examiner that as Native Americans, "We are a people with a strong sense of history and our traditions, but we are more than just our history. We live and work all over the country, and are not all living or were raised on reservations. People all over the world are fascinated with the Native American way of life, but they think we dress in traditional regalia and chant all the time, lol. We don’t. While we hold our sacred traditions very high, we dress, talk, act and live like everyone else. I believe in the oneness of human beings, and that all are connected."
When the Twitter Entertainment Examiner asked Birmingham what Billy Black would think of Native American Heritage Day falling on Black Friday he said, "The irony in choosing the biggest shopping day of the year as Native American Heritage Day would not be lost by Billy Black. Statistically, with an unemployment rate for Native Americans of 25% nationwide, which can climb as high has nearly 70% on the rez, it is hard not to see the irony of the date that was selected to honor Native American Heritage. That being said, it is good to focus attention on American Indians and our contributions to society."

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A couple of weeks ago Twitter was aghast at a statement made by the Vatican's Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the Pontifical Council of Culture. This week Gil Birmingham who plays 'Billy Black' in the Twilight series weighed in on the controversy in an exclusive interview with Examiner.com's Twitter Entertainment Examiner.

"The theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that as ever is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element. It is once again that age-old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office. This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern." ~ Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, Pontifical Council of Culture, The Vatican

According to the Pontificium Consilium de Cultura website, The Pontifical Council of Culture directly assists the Pope in the matter of addressing pop culture issues as well as other matters involving religious indifference and unbelief. The site states in part:

The Pontifical Council for Culture is that department (Dicastery) of the Roman Curia which assists the Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the benefit and service of the universal Church and of particular Churches concerning the encounter between the saving message of the Gospel and cultures, in the study of the weighty phenomena of ; the rift between the Gospel and cultures; indifference in matters of religion; unbelief.

Birmingham provided this response:

I have not read the entire press release from Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, only quotes in articles, and I’m always reluctant to comment on things without reading the original statement in its entirety.
However, if the statements are correct and not published out of context, it would appear that the Monsignor and the Catholic Church have failed to look past the stereotype of Vampires and Werewolves, and have missed some very important themes in the film, such as true love, friendship, acceptance of all people (even Vampires and Werewolves) for who they are, pain and dealing with grief, immortality and the loss of soul.
These are literary concepts that show up in literature throughout the ages. It is a love story between two characters from two warring tribes. Shakespeare called them Montagues and Capulets; Stephenie Meyers calls them Cullens and Blacks (and humans).

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A couple of weeks ago Twitter was aghast at a statement made by the Vatican's Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, of the Pontifical Council of Culture. This week Gil Birmingham who plays 'Billy Black' in the Twilight series weighed in on the controversy in an exclusive interview with Examiner.com's Twitter Entertainment Examiner.

"The theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that as ever is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element. It is once again that age-old trick or ideal formula of using extremes to make an impact at the box office. This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern." ~ Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, Pontifical Council of Culture, The Vatican

According to the Pontificium Consilium de Cultura website, The Pontifical Council of Culture directly assists the Pope in the matter of addressing pop culture issues as well as other matters involving religious indifference and unbelief. The site states in part:

The Pontifical Council for Culture is that department (Dicastery) of the Roman Curia which assists the Pontiff in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office for the benefit and service of the universal Church and of particular Churches concerning the encounter between the saving message of the Gospel and cultures, in the study of the weighty phenomena of ; the rift between the Gospel and cultures; indifference in matters of religion; unbelief.

Birmingham provided this response:

I have not read the entire press release from Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, only quotes in articles, and I’m always reluctant to comment on things without reading the original statement in its entirety.
However, if the statements are correct and not published out of context, it would appear that the Monsignor and the Catholic Church have failed to look past the stereotype of Vampires and Werewolves, and have missed some very important themes in the film, such as true love, friendship, acceptance of all people (even Vampires and Werewolves) for who they are, pain and dealing with grief, immortality and the loss of soul.
These are literary concepts that show up in literature throughout the ages. It is a love story between two characters from two warring tribes. Shakespeare called them Montagues and Capulets; Stephenie Meyers calls them Cullens and Blacks (and humans).

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With just days to go before the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Rolling Stone chatted with the film's director, Chris Weitz, about the anticipated movie's wildest stunts, the loyalty of Team Edward and the scenes you won't find in Stephenie Meyer's original book.

You said everyone's been asking you about the pressures of taking on such a successful franchise, and they also want to know why vampires are so popular.
Honestly, there weren't really any pressures for me because there was a guaranteed audience which meant that even if I made a terrible movie people would still watch it. So once you got that reassurance [laughs], you just set out to make the best movie possible, which is what we aimed to do. And I've felt nothing but support from the fans since day one — actually day one there was a little doubt because I have a Y chromosome, but ever since then I've felt a lot of love from the fans.

And why vampires?
I've actually realized that Stephenie Meyer's vampires aren't really vampires — you really don't see many crosses, there's not much garlic, they don't sleep in coffins, they can go out in the day time — they just look more beautiful. It's just more like Greek gods. So, in some ways it's about this girl who falls in love with this demi-god. I think that symbolizes your first love — the person you've fallen for who you think will never never possibly return your affections.

How much did you research vampires before starting the movie?
Absolutely zero. My research is reading Stephenie's books and talking to Stephenie and seeing the first film and knowing about the actors — getting familiar with the work that they'd done, but not much vampire-ology.

I read that you had this idea about the movie looking like a Victorian narrative painting in terms of the colors — how did you come to approach this film from that angle?
In terms of a model for cinematography I think it's a good one, which is to say the Victorian paintings, especially the pre-Raphaelites, told stories in a somewhat sentimentalized and very beautiful fashion. These books are not afraid to be sentimental or romantic and I wanted every aspect of the production to be unafraid to go to a very romantic place.

Whereas the first movie had a lot of tortured rock & roll kind of love to it, I wanted this one to be a sweeping epic. In many ways it's a much bigger film — in terms of the ground it covers, the emotions and the places it goes to — so I really wanted to make a classic-looking movie that was classically composed and classically shot. It had a classical score in a sense and [composer] Alexandre Desplat is very much from a school of composers who can work very much in a classical vein and in a contemporary vein. There is a sort of groovy component to it, which is the soundtrack, which we were able to get all of these amazing bands to compose for us, which is incredibly gratifying.

Going back to the notion of a "sweeping epic," the book breaks down into three sections: at first everything's fine. Then Edward leaves Bella, and most of the story is her coping and befriending Jacob. The end is packed with action as the story reaches its resolution. For purposes of telling this story on a screen, did you readjust the breakdown of the story?
You've pretty much described acts one, two and three. One of the interesting things is that the fear that people had was that there wasn't going to be enough Edward. That he's banished from the book really doesn't apply to this movie because you don't spend as long away from Edward. But it's also important to have some absence of Edward in order to miss him.

It would have been wrong, I think, to have numerous "back at the ranch" scenes where you're checking in with Edward kind of knocking around the Amazon rainforest looking for Victoria. I think it's a nice balance between missing Edward and having enough of him. Melissa Rosenberg, the screenwriter, and I decided to have visual hallucinations of Edward instead of just aural. When she sees him it's in a very subtle way so that it wasn't hitting people over the head.

I think the movie's pretty well balanced. Taylor gives a great performance, and his and Kristen's relationship holds down the movie in the middle of the film. Yes, there was a temptation to shift things so that we had as much Rob as possible but for Team Edward they're gonna get their Rob and for Team Jacob people they'll get their moment in the sun as well. But we didn't scramble to make up for any perceived deficiencies in that department.

The book is quite dark, but there are also lighthearted moments.
When things go dark they do get very dark and it is quite melancholy and depressing for a while. But we found ourselves with a few funny moments in our hands and when I hear it play in front of audiences there's laughter and I think it's intentional [Laughs] and not uncomfortable laughter. There's funny, off-kilter moments.

For instance you find out what vampire elevator music would sound like in one part, which is not what you would have expected and is not in the book. I decided in post-production it would be an interesting thing. When Stephenie finally saw a cut of the movie she said she absolutely loved it and wanted more.

You consulted Stephenie frequently as you were making decisions.
I was often checking back with her when I wanted to riff on something to see if it was OK with her and very often she thought, "That's a great idea, that's funny" or we'd have further ideas that would be incorporated into the film. So in some ways it's kind of an extrapolation or extension of the book.

But I did make some mistakes — at one point I had one of the Volturi [the powerful law-upholding Vampires] holding a stone knife to Edward's throat, and she said that wouldn't work [because the Volturi] wouldn't cut Edward's throat. So I said, "OK!" [Laughs]. I get my mythology wrong every once in a while and she sets me straight.

Did you add any scenes?
There's a moment of threat when Bella is drowning that I think isn't in the book. It's really funny — I've heard the response from fans and they saw that scene differently when they read it. I love it when something I've extrapolated or added in — and I always try to do things in the vein I'm adapting — but I love when something I've written or come up with or the screenwriter has written or come up with comes across as having been in the book in the first place. Then you know you've really hit your sweet spot.

I also read that you had instructed Kristen to do that scene one way and then got a wet suit on and got into the water yourself and realized it was an impossible way to tackle it.
Rob had done this underwater work in one of the Harry Potter movies, so he was relatively comfortable doing things at the bottom of a pool. In order to get this shot right, we needed to get a top shot of Kristen as Bella sinking down in the ocean. The best way to do that is to have Kristen at the bottom of a 12-foot pool weighted down, just sort of floating there immobile. And Kristen was already expressing a bit of concern about deep water, and I told her, "12 feet isn't that deep!" [Laughs] I decided to go down there in a wet suit weighted down and I started to panic.

I thought, "Holy crap, this isn't fun at all!" and realized Rob actually had some guts and that the rest of us should really stay up towards the top of the pool. We adjusted it so we could make our shot sideways and it looks just the same as a top shot. And Kristen had a cold that day, so that was the last thing I was going to do — put someone with a cold at the bottom of a 12-foot pool with weights in their pockets. That didn't seem like a wise move.

There's also motorcycle riding in this book — was everyone game for that?
We didn't want to endanger Kristen at all — when she's on the motorcycle, she's actually on a trailer. Even though it looks very realistic, she's never free-riding at any moment. But it didn't keep Taylor doing all of his stunts — he does all but one because he's just kind of crazy to jump around, and when you see him jump up the side of a building and do this parkour gag, it's actually him doing it. He has a wire on him, which we edited out, but the wire was only to prevent him from dying if he fell — it actually isn't hoisting him at all, so he was jumping up the side of a building on his own.

You've also adapted The Golden Compass and About a Boy. Do you think that you would have been able to approach New Moon without those under your belt?
I think given the time constraints we were under, it would have been much, much harder. The fact I was able to go into the CG elements of this movie with a team I already knew from The Golden Compass that had won the Oscar on The Golden Compass helped immeasurably because we were up to speed from day one. So it helps to know the right people — I'm not a master of CG, I just know people who are.

And in terms of translating from the page to the screen?
I think I've had, by now, quite a bit of training on what to keep in and what's extraneous and I've more and more become attached to the idea of being as faithful as possible to the original book and realizing that my responsibility is to the author and the fans and the book.

You had some controversy surrounding the release of The Golden Compass.
The controversy was that the studio removed elements of the book were going to make it less profitable. I objected strenuously and they re-cut my version of the film. So it made me all the more determined to prove the best way to adapt a book that has a fan base is to identify what the fans care about and to present it properly.

When you do that, you know that you're at least capturing what is appealing to people in the written form in the first place. That means that you also know what — who the audience is, even ones who haven't read the book — will like. At least you've identified something good.

You've talked a little bit about emphasizing Team Edward and Team Jacob moments — when did you get acquainted with those important points within the fanbase?
During shooting I tried not to refer too much to the fan Websites because I knew I'd just be worried about it all the time and kind of swayed like a politician by polls. I read the book like a fan — I read it very quickly and sort of gobbled it up and wondered what would be the moments that would matter the most to me as a fan. Melissa, fortunately, had written a great script that encapsulated what mattered most to the fans. At one point I remember Stephenie writing to me and saying that she had checked the Websites and the top 10 scenes that fans cared about were in the script, and that felt good.

There will be a moment here or there that a fan misses or sees differently and there's nothing I can do about it except to present it as another fan, albeit one who has tens of millions of dollars at his disposal to realize things.

Does your favorite moment from the book differ from your favorite moment in the movie?
No. Wait. Yes, it did, actually. The last moment of the movie I think is my favorite moment. It's a moment from the book but it's presented a little differently — it's given a little more of a cliffhanger, sort of romantic feel to. I think audiences will understand why I presented it that way and why it's not [the way it was in the book]. And the whole film builds up to it very carefully.

Did you do that to set the scene for David Slade to step in and direct the third film, Eclipse?
To be honest I was just trying to selfishly trying to choose the optimal emotional moment for myself and perhaps leaving David a bit of a pickle as to how to pick up the next movie. I've seen Melissa's script for the third movie and it deals with it pretty admirably — so they're OK!

More Twilight:
Rob Sheffield Reviews the New Moon Soundtrack
Q&A: Robert Pattinson
Peter Travers Reviews Twilight

Thank you to Rolling Stones for sitting down with Chris.
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-- Posted by Ashley

I love it! Lol!

I laughed my ass off when they started talking about the wolves.
Bronson's response to Cam Bright's comment was hilarious.

Translated from Portuguese:

The Foforks had the pleasure of interviewing more than one cast member of New Moon. This time we talk with the beautiful and friendly actress Justine Wachsberger, who plays Gianna, a human who is at the service of the Volturi and expects to be transformed into Rogue. Check below your mini-biography and the tab following the interview we did with it! In the last tab we have 5 HQ pictures sent by the agent Justine, 3 of which are unique and exclusive.

Balanced, charming and the world, the emerging actress Justine Wachsberger may not yet be widely known by the mainstream media, but is currently preparing to be one of the most watched young actresses in movies in 2010.

Born in Los Angeles, Justine was raised in a world surrounded by culture and travel. As a child, his family moved to Paris, France, and it was created between the metropolis of Los Angeles and the historic city of Paris until his teens. She attended high school in Paris, but returned to Los Angeles last year and attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, where he graduated. Justine continued his training by attending the prestigious University of Southern California, and graduated Bachelor of Communication and Theater.

Although education and travel have been the main priorities for Justine, she was quietly planting the seeds to continue his passion for acting, when they finished college. Justine shares: "I always knew I wanted to be an actress. My grandmother was a famous French actress in her time, and my grandfather was a producer, so I think my love for the entertainment business is just inside of me. "

While attending school and college, Justine also was studying theater in France, and later at USC. She was also involved in an intensive program at the New York Film Academy, and studied with some of the most respected teachers and prestigious area, including Larry Moss, Lesly Kahn, Scott Sedita, and Holly Powell, to name a few. Justine says that she loves most about acting is the ability to express a wide range of emotions and the opportunity to be able to reinvent itself several times.

She says, "I love having the chance to embody different characters, I can find these lives could be so different from mine, and sometimes find pieces of me in the characters, sometimes, I can create someone totally new. I also love being able to tell a story, through the representation. It's challenging, rewarding, and above all, fun. "Justine had her first film role in" Daughter of the President "from Twentieth Century Fox, appearing next to the Oscar-winning actor, Forest Whitaker. After taking a short break to finish college, Justine is ready to make his mark in the industry with two major films released in 2009.

First, Justine can be seen as "Katie" in the thriller-horror of Summit Entertainment, "Secret Pact", along with Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Matt Lanter, Briana Evigan, Carrie Fisher and, with debut on September 11 2009. Then Justine can be seen in the highly anticipated movie from Summit Entertainment, "THE TWILIGHT SAGA: New Moon, like Gianna, alongside Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning, and Nikki Reed.

In his spare time, Justine you like trekking, shopping, reading, movies, museums, and travel

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Robert Pattinson wants Daniel Radcliffe to give him advice.

The 'Twilight Saga: New Moon' hunk - who plays Edward Cullen in the vampire movie franchise - admits he is still struggling to cope with fame and would like to pick p some tips from his 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' co-star.

He said: "I'd quite like to talk to Daniel about fame. He has a very good method for coping with it all - well, from what I can see anyway. It seems like he stays completely grounded."

The 23-year-old actor - who is rumoured to be dating his 'Twilight' co-star Kristen Stewart, 19 - said they both found the experience of suddenly becoming famous very surreal.

He said: "It is strange. I was having dinner with her the other day and there was some magazine cover of us and because we've been so cut off, shooting in Vancouver, it's been such an insular existence, you don't really notice what's going on.

"But we were just looking at the magazine, and I said to her, 'You realise that's actually a real magazine cover with us on it?'

"It sounds so stupid, but you are just amazed that people are actually talking about us like 'Robert and Kristen'. It's like, 'What?'"


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-- Posted by Ashley