Team Edward
Robert Pattinson may not be the main star of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, but don't tell any of his fans that!
How difficult was making New Moon?
I did very little! (Director) Chris (Weitz) and the special effects team designed this thing that basically just allowed me to stand on a green box and stay relatively expressionless and all these machines did the acting for me - which is the way I like it! (laughs)
I saw you in the comedy How To Be and thought your facial expressions and mannerisms went really well for a comedy and was wondering if you might do any comedic roles in the future?
Yeah, I mean why not? I don't know if I'm particularly funny. Actually, one of my legs is shorter than the other one and that makes me look really awkward. I mean, half the time I look like an idiot so I don't know whether that makes me funny or not.
How did you guys address that fact that Rob's not in this film as much as Twilight, which might be disappointing to fans?
They won't be disappointed either. If he doesn't go, you can't miss him, and that's what this whole movie is about. It's that empty, completely dark place where Edward is absent.
With the experience of working with a new director and a new vibe on set, how has it been, this time around?
It wasn't just the director that made this one different. It was so different as well because we kind of knew what type of animal we were dealing with. I was much more of a supporting role in this one. I started three weeks after they started shooting and I did a lot of my first scenes doing the apparition scenes. That was a lot of me doing, maybe, one word. It was actually one of the most relaxing jobs that I've ever done. Chris has a really peaceful presence and I got on really well with him. I pretty much had a stress-free job, for three months. It was great for me. All the pressure was on Taylor.
Do you have a favorite scene from this film, that stands out as your favourite one to shoot?
I think my break-up scene was my favourite scene. Hopefully, it'll come off as having quite a few more levels than the relationship in Twilight. It was interesting. It was a five page long dialogue scene. That didn't happen at all in the first one, and it's quite an interesting little moment. It completely bypasses all the supernatural elements of the story as well.
Can you talk about why teenagers love vampires?
I think we're the worst people to ask about it. The problem is that, when I looked at it, I never looked at it as a vampire story, right from the beginning. When I try to play it, I try to eliminate the vampire element, as much as I can, and just see it as a tool to make their relationship a little more fraught. Right after the audition, I found myself bizarrely invested in the story and I hadn't even read the books, at that point. I've gotten more and more attached to it. I've been talking about the script for Eclipse to people, over the last few weeks, and I find myself getting very argumentative, which I'm not usually. They definitely have some kind of power.
Which of the novels resonates the most for you, as a reader or as an actor, and which are you most enthused about working in?
I think that New Moon was my favourite book, mainly because I like the juxtaposition. Edward is such a hyped character, and there are so many people looking at him like a romantic hero. In New Moon, the way that I read it anyway, he's just so humbled. It's a character who's looking at Bella and thinking that he loves something too much, but he can't be around. He deliberately starts breaking up their relationship, which I think is a very relatable thing that is very painful. And, in the fight sequence at the end, Bella ends up saving Edward, as she does in every single one of the books. It's really funny how everyone looks at Edward as the hero, and he's continuously saved by the damsel in distress. I think he really realises that in New Moon. Eclipse is really him trying to catch up with Jacob because he's so out of the loop and he can't speak in superlatives any more. He's accepted being alive and he needs to catch up to Jacob.
What is the one Twilight question that you never want to answer again?
(Joking) What's it like kissing Taylor Lautner?
Did you read Midnight Sun to help you understand Edward's perspective?
Yes, but that was more in relation to Twilight. It was, literally, what the entire storyline was in Twilight, just from Edward's perspective. I didn't really look too much at that for New Moon because, for whatever reason, I could connect a lot more to New Moon than I could to Twilight.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon is in cinemas from November 19. For more on the film, check out the latest issue of Filmink Magazine.
