BoxOffice® Pro - November 2011

BIG PICTURE > THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN—PART I
single emotion. I didn't care, and then ten
minutes later I'd care a lot. I think it's different
on every movie, and obviously this it's
going to be the most heightened. Luckily I
don't have to say goodbye to anyone. That's
different. Usually, you kind of know at the
end of a five week thing that you're not going
to hold on to every single relationship that
you form on these little movies, and I've done
a lot of those. But Twilight's been a unique
experience. It wasn't like saying goodbye to
everyone and how sad that is. It's more like
that you feel done. You feel like you've done
your job. And obviously, it's been a long process
and I can't just generally say, "Oh yeah!
I was completely happy!" It's definitely been
torturing me for a little while. At the end of
the day, I really f--king love it. I can't wait for
these two to come out. I feel like we really
take it up a notch.
You started acting at nine and already
had your own career before Twilight. And
between Twilight films, you've pursued
your own daring films like The Runaways
[as Joan Jett] and Welcome to the Rileys
[as a homeless teen hooker]. Now working
with child actresses like Mackensie
Foy [cast as Bella's fast-growing vampire
daughter] who is the same age now that
you were then, what advice can you give
about carving out their own career?
It's tough to say. I've done what I've done, and
it feels like a lot. But at the same time, I feel so
young, so it's weird for me to spout out stuff
or give advice. It makes me cringe a little bit.
But if I personalize it, I think it's pretty important
not to do anything that doesn't feel right.
People do things constantly in this business
that they do not believe in, and that's obviously
where people make huge errors. Even if
I make a bad movie, I look back and go, "Well,
that thing didn't necessarily turn out the way
I wanted it, or it could have been better, but
I loved the experience and it was something
that was worthwhile. Basically—and this is
so lame—but if you follow your heart, you're
never going to regret anything, even if you
completely mess up constantly. Whenever I
hear anyone giving acting advice, it's either
really vague and general like, "Follow your
dreams," which is basically what I'm saying,
or actual agent-y weird s--t that I have absolutely
no idea about.
Corny advice is corny because it's true.
Exactly. In most cases.
You're shooting Snow White and the
Huntsman right now which imagines
Snow White as this warrior princess.
What's her fighting style like?
Not to trivialize it at all, but it's hard to play
an action hero who is also the most compassionate
person on earth. You can't hate. You
epitomize bleeding hearts, so how the f--k
do you do an action movie like that? She is
sort of the last shred of hope for her land.
She has this ethereal, spiritual connection
to her people—she really feels things—and
so it's like we don't really feel empathy. I've
had some f--king eye-opening experiences
on this movie. I think that to truly care for
something isn't just putting yourself in that
situation aesthetically and then going, "Oh
my god, I feel so bad for them." It's truly not
thinking of yourself at all. The way that you
fight is that you must take out anything
that hurt your people. Basically, I'm fighting
evil—I'm fighting the most evil motherf-
-kers—and it's fine that they're being killed.
It's anguish. It's literally f--king anguish. She
takes absolutely no pleasure in ever hurting
anything. I'm exhausted right now and I was
thinking, "The fight stuff is coming up, maybe
that won't be so bad." And then I realized
that they're probably going to be my most
emotional scenes because I'm killing people
and I'm Snow White. It's a really f--king cool
way to approach a movie where so many
people die. Not that I'm criticizing violent
movies—I love them, generally—but it is
nice to do it this way.
You're the type of fighter who would
take a bullet.
Yeah, and also very impulsive. She hasn't
learned how to fight—she's just smart,
she's just fast. If you're smarter than someone
and you're not scared and you know
you're doing it for the right reasons, it
doesn't matter how big you are: you could
probably f--k them up. She's a weird kind
of savant. She has to kind of click off her
mind. You either have to completely feel it
or completely turn it off and just slaughter
people. Which is awful, but they're the bad
guys, so whatever.
OUR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
WITH DIRECTOR BILL CONDON
BEGINS ON PAGE 54
52 BOXOFFICE PRO NOVEMBER 2011