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There’s only so much you can do to guard secrets on a set.
When Breaking Dawn began shooting last November, the
filmmakers hired additional security and barred press from the
set – all to keep audiences in a state of glorious suspense.
But still, things happen.
In March, grainy images – showing what appeared to be some of
the more anticipated moments from the film, including Bella
and Edward in bed – leaked onto the internet, prompting
director Bill Condon and author Stephenie Meyer to request
that fans avert their eyes.
“It’s hard not to feel that it was malicious in some way,”
says Condon (Gods and Monsters). “It seemed like the very
things we were most eager to keep a lid on were the ones that
got exposed.”
“It was gutting,” adds Kristen Stewart, 21, who plays Bella.
She figured the culprits had hacked into daily footage from
the set, so she started leaving pointed messages at the end of
her takes: “I’d be like, ‘Hey, go for it! Just steal it!’ They
knew every moment that was important to people, and that’s
really what was so annoying.”
You can’t blame the cast and crew for getting especially riled
up. Breaking Dawn is the conclusion of Meyer’s Twilight Saga.
It wades into darker and murkier than the previous three
installments, and its 754 pages are, to say the least, rather
eventful.
Possibly inspired by that other frenzy-inducing franchise
Harry Potter, Summit Entertainment decided to split Breaking
Dawn into two movies, scheduled for release November 18, 2011
and November 2012, in order to properly pace the action – and,
no doubt, to prolong the inevitable goodbye.
Shooting Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 simultaneously involved
filming round the clock for nearly six months at locations as
far-flung as Baton Rouge, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro, and the
US Virgin Islands. As Robert Pattinson, ho plays Edward, puts
it, “I feel like we’ve been doing it my whole life.”
The fact that the novel is so troubling and gothic – the
saga’s finale is divisive even among Twihards – could only
have added to the strangeness of the enterprise. “When I read
the book I asked myself, ‘How is this going to be a movie?’”
says Taylor Lautner, 19, who plays Jacob.
“Everyone said it felt totally different than anything we’ve
done before,” says Stewart. “Just the fact that I’m sitting
there pregnant – it’s like, wow, are we really doing a
Twilight movie?!”
Pattinson agrees, fumbling for words to describe the plot. “
It’s very, very, very strange,” says the actor, 24. “There’s
just...it goes...there’s definitely, um, some interesting and
weird stuff going on.”
If you’re reading this story and you’ve never read Breaking
Dawn, consider yourself spoiler-alerted. (Also: It’s kinda
weird that you’re reading this story.)
The rest of you know full well that it is in this installment
that Bella and Edward marry and – finally ripping the bodice
off their passionate but chaste relationship – consummate
their love amid flying feathers.
The act is not without consequence. Bella becomes
pregnant…with a half-vampire baby that grows inside her at an
alarming rate, putting our heroine’s life at grave risk, even
as she endures a shockingly gruesome and violent labor.
To prevent death from having the final word, Edward, with the
support of this pale posse, must turn Bella into a vampire.
And that’s just what happens in Part 1.
“It is very much a departure,” screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg
says of the novel. “The first three books are about the love
triangle, and coming of age in terms of relationships and
romance. Breaking Dawn is really an adult story. I think the
audience hopefully had grown up with the books and will
appreciate it.”
If they haven’t matured with the books, they’re about to grow
up fast. “We shot everything – whether it’s the lovemaking or
the childbirth – as potent and powerful as it can be,” says
director Condon, who knew he was working within the
constraints of PG-13.
“It will be interesting to see whether there will be people
who think it too disturbing for this universe.” For her part,
Stewart wishes the movie could have been even truer to the
graphic nature of the book.
“In some ways it was disappointing not to be able to really go
there,” she says. Asked if she ever imagine what an R-rated
version of the film might look like, Stewart laughs and says,
“We imagined it every single day.”
To be clear, it’s not the honeymoon scene that Stewart wishes
were more graphic (“It feels like a real love scene, not
necessarily vampire-y, which is good”) but the brutal birth of
the baby, Renesmee.
“It’s funny because when [the PG-13 issue] comes up, everybody
thinks it’s all about the sex,” she says. “The birth is really
effective, and I’ve heard it really hits you in the face. But
what it could have been? It could have been shocking and
grotesque, because that’s how it was written in the book.”
She sighs: “I would have loved to have been puking up blood.”
Bella’s pregnancy is controversial for other, trickier reasons
as well. Some readers have balked at what they interpreted to
be a pro-life message in Meyer’s novel, since Bella refuses to
consider aborting her baby, even when she learns it could kill
her. It was something the cast and crew had to come to terms
with.
Says Condon, “Melissa and I were superaware of staying away
form anything that could be read as some kind of allegory or
message, which I think we were able to do.”
Adds Rosenberg, “It was an issue because I’m very prochoice.
But the truth is, Twilight is not the arena to be having the
abortion debate. My approach to it is that having a child is a
choice. More than a political issue, it’s about Bella’s
reasoning and articulating that was the challenge.”
Stewart, who has become a devoted caretaker of the Bella
character over the years, says she’s in full agreement with
her fictional counterpoint: “I’m so on Bella’s side. The idea
of destroying something they made together that could never
happen again...It has nothing to do with the pro-life thing. I
just love the idea of her fighting. She’s been willing to die
for so much, but now you actually see her, well, literally die
for it.”
The actress insists Bella’s dilemma felt utterly real to her.
“This really could happen to anyone my age. I mean, maybe not
the whole vampire thing, but everything else. It didn’t feel
like, ‘Oh, how could you have possibly played this? It’s so
beyond your years!’ It’s like, ‘Not really, dude.’”
In other modern fairy tales, lovers might prove their mettle
by chasing their intended though heavy rain or airport
security, but Bella doesn’t have it so easy. Death as the
ultimate sacrifice has always loomed darkly over The Twilight
Saga.
After so many scenes of terror and blood, the wedding sequence
came as a relief to more than one member of the Breaking Dawn
team. It was scheduled near the end of production and brought
the cast together one final time. “I never would have thought
I’d be affected in this way, but it was one of the coolest
things that I’ve done,” says Stewart.
“There was a certain point when I walked on set, and I saw
everyone from the entire cast sitting there in the pews, about
to do their bit. And it was just so perfect for me in that
moment. It was so emotional in such a real way. I literally
felt like thanking them for coming.”
For Lautner, Jacob and Bella’s bittersweet dance during the
reception appears to have been as poignant as...a wedding. “It
didn’t help that the scene itself was so emotional,” he says.
“I knew it was going to be tough on the last day – and it was
tough.”
Pattinson has a slightly less sentimental memory of the
wedding sequence, which was shot in Vancouver. “It was quite
nice seeing all the vampires get together,” he says. “And it
was a beautiful setting, but it was incredibly freezing cold.”
He preferred filming the honeymoon, particularly the pickup
shots over Easter weekend in St. Thomas. “It was amazing
finishing out in the Caribbean. It was like, why couldn’t we
have been shooting in the Caribbean the whole time? I would
have done another five!”
Now that Breaking Dawn has wrapped, the cast members can go
their separate ways – until the press tour rears its head,
anyway. The stars have clearly become close over the years,
and not just Stewart and Pattinson. (They’ve actually never
confirmed their relationship, but after those photos of them
at the Water for Elephants premiere, they probably don’t need
to.)
Pattinson, in a lovely bit of understatement, says this about
his costars: “Having to spend so much time with people...it’s
just nice when you like them. There is a real bond. I think
also there’s something humbling about wearing the makeup and
contacts.” He laughs.
“Except Taylor – he doesn’t have to do a thing. He’s managed
[to do] no work on this last one. He’s always a wolf!”
Pattinson laughs again, anticipating Breaking Dawn Part 2.
“But he has to fall in love with a baby...Oh, God, I can’t
wait to see how that goes.”
When Lautner is told of Pattinson’s ribbing, he says, “Oh my
gosh. That sounds like him. Everybody is always complaining to
me that I don’t have to wear the contacts, I don’t have to
wear the white makeup or wear wigs and all that stuff. And I’m
like, ‘I’m the one in the freezing rain and cold not wearing a
shirt! I paid my dues in New Moon and Eclipse.’”
And as for falling for – or imprinting on – Renesmee? “There
were many times I walked up to Stephenie [Meyer] and asked
her, ‘What exactly is imprinting?’” says Lautner. “It’s still
a very confusing thing for me, so don’t ask.”
“It’s been quite a ride,” he continues, on a more serious
note. “It seems like just yesterday I was showing up to the
set of Twilight and meeting the cast, and now here I am, years
later, done filming. It’s really the weirdest feeling.”
The actors have already started testing the post-Twilight
waters: Pattinson is now starring opposite Reese Witherspoon
in Water for Elephants; Lautner will headline the thriller
Abduction this fall; and Stewart says she’s “almost positive”
she’ll play the fairest of them all in Universal’s Snow White
and the Huntsman.
Director Condon says he’s among the many looking forward to
seeing where the actors’ careers will take them. “Rob was the
biggest surprise to me – just getting to know him,” he says,
noting that out of the three, Pattinson is the least like the
character he plays. “You spend time with him and you think,
‘God, I hope you get to play this incredibly smart, funny guy
that you are.’
“Taylor is just a complete natural, a born entertainer. And
Kristen,” he laughs, “she’s just hugely talented. I heard this
great story about her that I think sums it up.
“She was pitched a female role in a comic-book superhero movie
that’s about to get started – I won’t say which one – and she
was like, ‘Well, screw that. I shouldn’t be the superhero’s
girlfriend, I should be the superhero.’ I think she’s one of
those people who will not fit into some kind of niche, but
mold a career around who she is.”
The actress, who started playing the part of Bella at 17 and
celebrated her 21st birthday at the Breaking Dawn wrap party,
agrees her real life has mingled with Bella’s. “In the oddest
ways, so many parallels can be drawn between my life and this
series. Birthdays coincide, graduation, everything,” she says.
She’s happy Breaking Dawn is over, she adds, but mostly
because she knows they’ve done it right. “I really am so
satisfied with the entire experience this time around,” she
says. “I really feel like we went through something, and it
was captured. Who knows how it will turn out, but that’s now
it felt. We ended on such a high note, and that was the whole
point of this one – to reach a state of exuberance.”
Goodness, such positivity!
“I know, man, right?” Stewart laughs. “I’m so happy to be
saying this to you, you have no idea.
When Breaking Dawn began shooting last November, the
filmmakers hired additional security and barred press from the
set – all to keep audiences in a state of glorious suspense.
But still, things happen.
In March, grainy images – showing what appeared to be some of
the more anticipated moments from the film, including Bella
and Edward in bed – leaked onto the internet, prompting
director Bill Condon and author Stephenie Meyer to request
that fans avert their eyes.
“It’s hard not to feel that it was malicious in some way,”
says Condon (Gods and Monsters). “It seemed like the very
things we were most eager to keep a lid on were the ones that
got exposed.”
“It was gutting,” adds Kristen Stewart, 21, who plays Bella.
She figured the culprits had hacked into daily footage from
the set, so she started leaving pointed messages at the end of
her takes: “I’d be like, ‘Hey, go for it! Just steal it!’ They
knew every moment that was important to people, and that’s
really what was so annoying.”
You can’t blame the cast and crew for getting especially riled
up. Breaking Dawn is the conclusion of Meyer’s Twilight Saga.
It wades into darker and murkier than the previous three
installments, and its 754 pages are, to say the least, rather
eventful.
Possibly inspired by that other frenzy-inducing franchise
Harry Potter, Summit Entertainment decided to split Breaking
Dawn into two movies, scheduled for release November 18, 2011
and November 2012, in order to properly pace the action – and,
no doubt, to prolong the inevitable goodbye.
Shooting Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 simultaneously involved
filming round the clock for nearly six months at locations as
far-flung as Baton Rouge, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro, and the
US Virgin Islands. As Robert Pattinson, ho plays Edward, puts
it, “I feel like we’ve been doing it my whole life.”
The fact that the novel is so troubling and gothic – the
saga’s finale is divisive even among Twihards – could only
have added to the strangeness of the enterprise. “When I read
the book I asked myself, ‘How is this going to be a movie?’”
says Taylor Lautner, 19, who plays Jacob.
“Everyone said it felt totally different than anything we’ve
done before,” says Stewart. “Just the fact that I’m sitting
there pregnant – it’s like, wow, are we really doing a
Twilight movie?!”
Pattinson agrees, fumbling for words to describe the plot. “
It’s very, very, very strange,” says the actor, 24. “There’s
just...it goes...there’s definitely, um, some interesting and
weird stuff going on.”
If you’re reading this story and you’ve never read Breaking
Dawn, consider yourself spoiler-alerted. (Also: It’s kinda
weird that you’re reading this story.)
The rest of you know full well that it is in this installment
that Bella and Edward marry and – finally ripping the bodice
off their passionate but chaste relationship – consummate
their love amid flying feathers.
The act is not without consequence. Bella becomes
pregnant…with a half-vampire baby that grows inside her at an
alarming rate, putting our heroine’s life at grave risk, even
as she endures a shockingly gruesome and violent labor.
To prevent death from having the final word, Edward, with the
support of this pale posse, must turn Bella into a vampire.
And that’s just what happens in Part 1.
“It is very much a departure,” screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg
says of the novel. “The first three books are about the love
triangle, and coming of age in terms of relationships and
romance. Breaking Dawn is really an adult story. I think the
audience hopefully had grown up with the books and will
appreciate it.”
If they haven’t matured with the books, they’re about to grow
up fast. “We shot everything – whether it’s the lovemaking or
the childbirth – as potent and powerful as it can be,” says
director Condon, who knew he was working within the
constraints of PG-13.
“It will be interesting to see whether there will be people
who think it too disturbing for this universe.” For her part,
Stewart wishes the movie could have been even truer to the
graphic nature of the book.
“In some ways it was disappointing not to be able to really go
there,” she says. Asked if she ever imagine what an R-rated
version of the film might look like, Stewart laughs and says,
“We imagined it every single day.”
To be clear, it’s not the honeymoon scene that Stewart wishes
were more graphic (“It feels like a real love scene, not
necessarily vampire-y, which is good”) but the brutal birth of
the baby, Renesmee.
“It’s funny because when [the PG-13 issue] comes up, everybody
thinks it’s all about the sex,” she says. “The birth is really
effective, and I’ve heard it really hits you in the face. But
what it could have been? It could have been shocking and
grotesque, because that’s how it was written in the book.”
She sighs: “I would have loved to have been puking up blood.”
Bella’s pregnancy is controversial for other, trickier reasons
as well. Some readers have balked at what they interpreted to
be a pro-life message in Meyer’s novel, since Bella refuses to
consider aborting her baby, even when she learns it could kill
her. It was something the cast and crew had to come to terms
with.
Says Condon, “Melissa and I were superaware of staying away
form anything that could be read as some kind of allegory or
message, which I think we were able to do.”
Adds Rosenberg, “It was an issue because I’m very prochoice.
But the truth is, Twilight is not the arena to be having the
abortion debate. My approach to it is that having a child is a
choice. More than a political issue, it’s about Bella’s
reasoning and articulating that was the challenge.”
Stewart, who has become a devoted caretaker of the Bella
character over the years, says she’s in full agreement with
her fictional counterpoint: “I’m so on Bella’s side. The idea
of destroying something they made together that could never
happen again...It has nothing to do with the pro-life thing. I
just love the idea of her fighting. She’s been willing to die
for so much, but now you actually see her, well, literally die
for it.”
The actress insists Bella’s dilemma felt utterly real to her.
“This really could happen to anyone my age. I mean, maybe not
the whole vampire thing, but everything else. It didn’t feel
like, ‘Oh, how could you have possibly played this? It’s so
beyond your years!’ It’s like, ‘Not really, dude.’”
In other modern fairy tales, lovers might prove their mettle
by chasing their intended though heavy rain or airport
security, but Bella doesn’t have it so easy. Death as the
ultimate sacrifice has always loomed darkly over The Twilight
Saga.
After so many scenes of terror and blood, the wedding sequence
came as a relief to more than one member of the Breaking Dawn
team. It was scheduled near the end of production and brought
the cast together one final time. “I never would have thought
I’d be affected in this way, but it was one of the coolest
things that I’ve done,” says Stewart.
“There was a certain point when I walked on set, and I saw
everyone from the entire cast sitting there in the pews, about
to do their bit. And it was just so perfect for me in that
moment. It was so emotional in such a real way. I literally
felt like thanking them for coming.”
For Lautner, Jacob and Bella’s bittersweet dance during the
reception appears to have been as poignant as...a wedding. “It
didn’t help that the scene itself was so emotional,” he says.
“I knew it was going to be tough on the last day – and it was
tough.”
Pattinson has a slightly less sentimental memory of the
wedding sequence, which was shot in Vancouver. “It was quite
nice seeing all the vampires get together,” he says. “And it
was a beautiful setting, but it was incredibly freezing cold.”
He preferred filming the honeymoon, particularly the pickup
shots over Easter weekend in St. Thomas. “It was amazing
finishing out in the Caribbean. It was like, why couldn’t we
have been shooting in the Caribbean the whole time? I would
have done another five!”
Now that Breaking Dawn has wrapped, the cast members can go
their separate ways – until the press tour rears its head,
anyway. The stars have clearly become close over the years,
and not just Stewart and Pattinson. (They’ve actually never
confirmed their relationship, but after those photos of them
at the Water for Elephants premiere, they probably don’t need
to.)
Pattinson, in a lovely bit of understatement, says this about
his costars: “Having to spend so much time with people...it’s
just nice when you like them. There is a real bond. I think
also there’s something humbling about wearing the makeup and
contacts.” He laughs.
“Except Taylor – he doesn’t have to do a thing. He’s managed
[to do] no work on this last one. He’s always a wolf!”
Pattinson laughs again, anticipating Breaking Dawn Part 2.
“But he has to fall in love with a baby...Oh, God, I can’t
wait to see how that goes.”
When Lautner is told of Pattinson’s ribbing, he says, “Oh my
gosh. That sounds like him. Everybody is always complaining to
me that I don’t have to wear the contacts, I don’t have to
wear the white makeup or wear wigs and all that stuff. And I’m
like, ‘I’m the one in the freezing rain and cold not wearing a
shirt! I paid my dues in New Moon and Eclipse.’”
And as for falling for – or imprinting on – Renesmee? “There
were many times I walked up to Stephenie [Meyer] and asked
her, ‘What exactly is imprinting?’” says Lautner. “It’s still
a very confusing thing for me, so don’t ask.”
“It’s been quite a ride,” he continues, on a more serious
note. “It seems like just yesterday I was showing up to the
set of Twilight and meeting the cast, and now here I am, years
later, done filming. It’s really the weirdest feeling.”
The actors have already started testing the post-Twilight
waters: Pattinson is now starring opposite Reese Witherspoon
in Water for Elephants; Lautner will headline the thriller
Abduction this fall; and Stewart says she’s “almost positive”
she’ll play the fairest of them all in Universal’s Snow White
and the Huntsman.
Director Condon says he’s among the many looking forward to
seeing where the actors’ careers will take them. “Rob was the
biggest surprise to me – just getting to know him,” he says,
noting that out of the three, Pattinson is the least like the
character he plays. “You spend time with him and you think,
‘God, I hope you get to play this incredibly smart, funny guy
that you are.’
“Taylor is just a complete natural, a born entertainer. And
Kristen,” he laughs, “she’s just hugely talented. I heard this
great story about her that I think sums it up.
“She was pitched a female role in a comic-book superhero movie
that’s about to get started – I won’t say which one – and she
was like, ‘Well, screw that. I shouldn’t be the superhero’s
girlfriend, I should be the superhero.’ I think she’s one of
those people who will not fit into some kind of niche, but
mold a career around who she is.”
The actress, who started playing the part of Bella at 17 and
celebrated her 21st birthday at the Breaking Dawn wrap party,
agrees her real life has mingled with Bella’s. “In the oddest
ways, so many parallels can be drawn between my life and this
series. Birthdays coincide, graduation, everything,” she says.
She’s happy Breaking Dawn is over, she adds, but mostly
because she knows they’ve done it right. “I really am so
satisfied with the entire experience this time around,” she
says. “I really feel like we went through something, and it
was captured. Who knows how it will turn out, but that’s now
it felt. We ended on such a high note, and that was the whole
point of this one – to reach a state of exuberance.”
Goodness, such positivity!
“I know, man, right?” Stewart laughs. “I’m so happy to be
saying this to you, you have no idea.
| Copyright © 2007 | www.booksandwands.com | All Rights Reserved No copyright infringement intended of any and all source material. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Warner Brothers Entertainment. The Twilight Saga belongs to Stephenie Meyer, her publishing house, Summit Entertainment, Maverick Films and their distributors. |
