The love stuff comes easy to Robert Pattinson by now. What the actor’s most worried about is how his fight scenes with bigger, brawnier Taylor Lautner will look in the third Twilight movie, Eclipse.
Grisly deaths plague Seattle. Vampires fight werewolves. Vampires and werewolves unite to battle, um, badder vampires.
Apparently, the filmmakers are doing all they can to make Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight saga, appealing to boys. But we all know this series is really about the relationship between dreamy vampire Edward Cullen and his human love, Bella. And the core female audience should have plenty to moon over when the second sequel hits screens this month, just seven months after the last entry, New Moon.
“In New Moon, Edward tries to deal with the relationship and, sort of, fails,” Robert Pattinson, who plays Cullen, says in an L.A. interview. “In Eclipse, it really is the everyday rigmarole of having a relationship, and dealing with jealousy and pettiness.”
Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella, says it’s not that simple. After all, her character is still torn between Edward and the feelings she has for her lifelong friend, Native American lycanthrope Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). “Bella now has to actually be able to stand up and say, okay, so maybe every choice isn’t completely impulsive,” explains Stewart in a separate L.A. interview. “Maybe there are different levels of love, and maybe my ideological views of what I think you are to me are wrong, and maybe I could look at somebody else.”
That said, it still seems Eclipse offers more for the guys than just a good bet the movie will put their dates in a romantic mood. The film was directed by David Slade, who last time out made the gory vampire action thriller 30 Days of Night. Slade is, perhaps, a bit more attuned to what men want than Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke (The Nativity Story) and Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass), who helmed New Moon.
“Different worlds collide in this one,” says Stewart. “We make it more dangerous every time.”
This time out, the lissome, ethereal-looking Pattinson has to get more physical with the pumped-up Lautner, and he just hopes audiences buy their fight scenes.
“There is a bunch of fighting,” says the 24-year-old Brit. “In the most simplistic of ways, trying to be intimidating to Taylor is just physically humiliating. In one scene, I tried to grab him and his shoulder was too big! That was embarrassing.”
While physical strength may not be Pattinson’s, well, strength, he does have an uncanny ability to brood and smoulder in a way that drives the ladies nuts. But while it works well on-screen, that low-key nature can also come off as aloof, even falsely self-deprecating, off-screen. And Pattinson’s the first one to admit it.
“The problem is, mainly, that I’m really finicky about looking pretentious for some reason,” he says. “I think, because I haven’t done too much work and I’ve become so, kind of, big, people have a hyper-judgment of you. I always thought the best way to deal with that is just to kind of play down everything. But I never saw the result of that being people saying, ‘Why can’t you just shut up? We’re so sick of the humble act. When’s he going to stop pretending to be humble?’”
As of this article’s writing, it had yet to be decided whether Stephenie Meyer’s fourth and final “Twilight” novel, “Breaking Dawn”, would be made into one or two films. Either way, production should start in Vancouver (where New Moon and Eclipse were shot) this fall. “British Columbia is great,” says Pattinson. “Everybody always talks about how easy it is to make movies in Vancouver because no one cares if anyone’s around. And it really was like that with New Moon. It was so easy, there was never any hassle about going out or anything. But it changed a little bit on the third one. “But,” he adds, “there are a bunch of nice restaurants in Vancouver, and it’s a really cool city.”
The pair views the impending end of the film series with mixed feelings. On the plus side, it will likely put the brakes on the intrusive tabloid scrutiny they’ve endured. So far, at least, Twihard fans have expressed little interest in Stewart and Pattinson’s non-saga movies (like The Runaways and Remember Me, respectively), and the paparazzi will likely thin out once they have nothing left to obsess over, such as those still unproven rumours of a real-life romance between the handsome pair.
Then again, they may not know what to do — or what they’ll be able to do — when the post-Breaking break comes.
“I think it’s good that I’ve just been working this whole time,” Pattinson says of the past two years. “You don’t go out and do that much when you’re shooting anyway, because you’re just so tired all the time. So it hasn’t been that incapacitating. But it’s been difficult to figure out where to live and stuff; I mean, the idea of getting a house… If people are always waiting outside your home, then you might as well sell it.
“And I miss just randomly dropping into clubs and playing music,” adds the actor, who pursued a recording career before moviemaking proved more lucrative. “That’s annoying. But really, you can still do anything you want to do; it’s just the fear of judgment afterward.”
In keeping, perhaps, with her screen persona, Stewart, now 20, sounds more torn about the series’ conclusion.
“The interesting thing about wanting it to come to an end is not because you want the experience of it to end,” Stewart says. “The experience that I get from it is so different from what press and media or fans or whatever see. I actually get to make the movies. Most of the questions I hear are about how specifically my life has changed because of that, but that’s really sort of extra. I didn’t know that that was going to happen. I’ve never had more opportunity in my life and I’ve worked really hard for it. So I’m really grateful.”
As for Eclipse, Stewart says that, whether they’re seeking monster action or are hungry for unattainable love, viewers are in for a taste of — believe it or not — reality.
“It matures, basically,” she says. “It takes a really ideal story and makes it a little more cerebral. It’s like, so what if you actually had to do this? It takes away the fantasy element a little bit and shows you that it’s not so, sort of, dreamy.”
Bob Strauss lives in L.A. where he writes about movies and filmmakers.
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What everyone but you already knows about Robert Pattinson
We realize there isn’t much we can tell Robert Pattinson’s fans that they don’t already know. But we also realize that a lot of our readers (like the ones who aren’t female, and aren’t under 18) don’t know the first thing about the wan one. So, in the interest of bridging the gap, we give you this R-Patz primer.
Born: May 13, 1986, London, England
Family: Mom worked for a modelling agency, dad imported luxury cars. Has two sisters, one is a singer, the other works in advertising
Education: The Harrodian private school in London
Start in Acting: Barnes Theatre Club. An agent spotted him in a production of Tess of the d’Urbervilles
First Movie Role: An uncredited part in 2004’s Vanity Fair. His scenes were cut and only appear on the DVD
First Big Break: Playing Hufflepuff student Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter films, starting with 2005’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Non-Acting Skills: Has played piano and guitar since he was three and five years old, respectively
Twilight Audition: Took place in director Catherine Hardwicke’s bedroom. He was so nervous he took a Valium
Acting Role Model: Jack Nicholson, ever since he saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at age 13. After that he tried to dress like Jack, adopt his mannerisms and copy his accent
Next role: Georges Duroy, a manipulative Parisian who preys on the city’s wealthy women, in Bel Ami. It’s based on the 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant
—Marni Weisz
COSMOPOLIS
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN (PART TWO)
BEL AMI
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN (PART ONE)
