Catherine Hardwicke Speaks Out to Elle
Catherine Hardwicke just released a new movie Plush. She recently did an interview with Elle magazine and talked about her new movie and old ones as well including Twilight. She also spoke about the actors she has worked with and some of her experience with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.
What inspired you to cast Emily Browning as Hayley?
At the time we were casting Twilight, all the fans online wanted Emily, not Kristen Stewart, to play Bella! I met with Emily. She had just come off a distressing experience on a movie and was like, “I don’t know if I want to act again or just go back to Australia and lie on the beach.” She was not in a head space to commit to a possible trilogy. But I loved her. She has a very special, unique, and kind of magical quality and fearlessness. She also has an amazing voice—it has a lot of soul and texture. She sings in this film.
You’ve said that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were perfect for their roles. What did you see in them that made you cast them?
I thought Kristen was just amazing in Into the Wild. When I read the novel Twilight, I kept picturing her in that scene, where she’s sitting in the trailer, hoping to seduce Emile Hirsch. Her yearning was palpable, real, and intense. I thought, “This girl would be wonderful.” So Summit flew me out to Pittsburgh, where she was shooting Adventureland. We took an actor with us and improvised a lot of scenes. To find Edward was tricky, because how he was written, he was perfect, with these cheekbones, and he was also wise beyond his years. We whittled it down from hundreds of actors to four. I’d only talked to Rob on the phone when he was much younger. He flew out on his own dime and stayed on his agent’s couch. The four actors came over to my house and we workshopped all the “chemistry” scenes. With Rob and Kristen, it was apparent that those two just connected and had a magnetism for each other that was electric, right there on the spot.
You can read the full article at Elle.com
