“I had never heard of the books before knowing about the project, and to be honest I didn’t have time to read the script the first time they sent it to me. I wasn’t impressed with the synopsis, I thought it was shallow and not vey believable, but I ended up reading the script and loved the story right away, I really wanted to play Bella.”
After accepting the role in the movie, Kristen read the books to prepare for the character: “I read all the books and I love them. But before filming Twilight I only read the first book. The movies are very faithful to the books, so we have a lot of material to work on, you want to know what your character is like, who she is, where she’s going, but not too much. As an actress you can’t forget, or not know something once you know it, I don’t know if that makes sense”.
She makes a pause and chooses carefully her words: “Many things happen to Bella in this saga. I wanted to stay in the moment in every stage of the story. Reading the books is such a vicarious experience. It’s easy to see why so many girls like these books. It’s because you’re Bella whn you’re reading them. I think people can relate to what she’s going through and they live these moments through her”.
Her favorite book is New Moon: “In the first book, she thought she had found true love. I liked seeing her feeling evolve and reconsider everything she thought she had with Edward, who was gone.”
In Eclipse Bella goes through many challenges, especially with the love traingle. We asked her how she feels with the way her charate developes in this saga. Again, she takes her time to answer. We have the feeling she worries a lot about her character and her role in the story.
“It was interesting to explore how Bella deals with different levels of love and how what she thought in the past could’ve changed or maybe not be real at all. Bella is very honest deep down, I really think she is, and this is the first time she lies, she lies to herself and everybody around her, by maybe considering she loves Jacob. And she has to face the fact that the love fo him is not as strong as the love for Edward. Edward and Jacob are mortal enemies, so their actions and choices take meaningful implications for them, for the Cullens, for the wolfpack, and for herself.”
Making these scenes was not hard for Kristen, despite the actors being very different from each other, as well as the characters: “It wasn’t that hard, actually. this is our third movie and the characters and their motivations are very well established, so I just let it take me where it wants me to go. I think it works because we know each other perfectly, we’ve grown together, and the experience with each other as actors, and playing this characters is something that you can see. There’s certain comfort when we see each other again for filming.” she assures with a laugh.
Besides being a romance, Eclipse has more action than it’s previous movies. The Cullens join forces with the wolfpack in a war against the newborn army started by Victoria.
What physical challenges did this bring to you?
She laughs again: “Unfortunately, I didn’t do any of the action sequences, and I didn’t do my own stunts. I was carried by Taylor during most of the scenes” we both agreed that being carried by a half-naked Taylor
Lautner wasn’t so bad, could it be?
So then we asked her about the challenges of working on a greenscreen when Taylor’s character appears to be in wolf shape. “It’s definitely a challenge as an actress, but I think it’s more recommendable to not joke around before filming scenes like these because it can break your focus. The worst thing a director can do is say: ‘I know it’s weird, but I need you to do it. You have to take it seriously and do it”.
She adds: “There’s a scene where Jacob is in wolf shape and I’m supposed to be talking and patting him, so Taylor stood there with his special suit so I could film the scene and make it more real. That made it easier for me”.
What can our readers learn from Bella and her story?
“They should experiment with different relationships and discover things about them along the way. At that age, your feelings are not necessarily being taken seriously, so they should see for themselves what matters to them, like Bella did, and make their own decisions. Bella risks everything, but I think it’s wonderful that she owns her actions and deals with the consequences”.
Time is up and Kristen has been very open through out our interview, but before we leave we ask her if she’s planning to do other things besides acting: “I love what I do. It seems like I work all th time, but I really enjoy it. I think I’ll go to college in the future. I love writing and I love reading words. We’ll see”.
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