BoxOffice® Pro - November 2011

BIG PICTURE > THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN—PART I
THE FAST TRACK TO ADULTHOOD
DEALING WITH A VAMPIRE PREGNANCY WOULD MATURE ANY COUPLE
set to figure out the birthing scene?
A midwife and a nurse, yes. It was because
it was a c-section, in it’s own strange way.
I wanted to make sure we were doing
everything the right way, even though it
obviously has vampire elements to it that
we couldn’t get much advice on.
What were you concerned with getting
right? The location of the organs?
Mostly that, yeah. Where the baby would
be and where you’d pick it up.
Are you a father yourself?
I am not, no.
So you’ve been spared watching the
birth of a baby in person.
Having babies on set was enough for me.
You must have nieces and cousins who
now think you’re the coolest guy ever.
There aren’t that many target audience
girls in my life who feel that, but kids of
friends I know, I’m really eager for them
to see it.
Do they pester you about what Bella’s
like in person?
There’s been a few of those, definitely.
You had a quote that I liked: you said
you “imprinted” on the book right
away, using the word Twilight uses for
when a werewolf falls in love.
It’s true. There was a moment when I was
like, “Oh, wow.” I think it was so interesting
that this love triangle had been set up,
and Bella’s dilemma—her desire to be with
Edward and her questions about being immortal—and
the fact that my god, she actually
does become a vampire. That was the
first surprise. And then Stephenie’s really
imaginative way of solving the romantic
triangle by introducing the Renesmee character
[Bella’s daughter, who the thwarted
werewolf Jacob imprints on as a child], all
of that was just so wild and completely
original.
How do you pull off that imprinting
where Jacob, who’s been this hunky
male lead, now falls for his ex-love’s
baby?
That’s definitely a challenge, but I think
that hopefully people understand what the
basic idea of imprinting is, you know. The
merging of souls. So I hope we were able
to capture that on screen so that it doesn’t
become reduced to something that’s more
mundane.
You definitely picked the most challenging
book in the series to take on.
I know! It’s true. I feel that. But also, the
wonderful thing about it is if you look at
all of the movies as being one story, I got to
do the third act, I got to do the part where
everything comes together. Which does
bring its own advantages.
When you started making this film,
what was the learning curve?
The cast taught me so much. Kristen
Stewart knows this character better than
anybody in the world, and it’s so much
made up of the Bella Swan of the book and
Kristen Stewart and what she brings to
it. That, for me, was just a lot of hanging
out and talking before we started shooting.
A lot of discussion, especially of the
script. We took a few weeks where we just
went through it page by page with all the
actors. That completely helped me to get
inside it.
56 BOXOFFICE PRO NOVEMBER 2011