Archives for 2009

About 10 different Twilight fansites had a phone interview with Anna and Mike. The questions are from the following websites: Twilight Examiner, Twilight Series Theories, Twilight Facebook, Twilight Moms, His Golden Eyes, Twilighters, Twilighters Anonymous, Twilight Superfan, Twilight Source/Imprint, Bella and Edward, Twilight Lexicon.

Q:  In New Moon you have a kind of love triangle going on.  I’m curious to see how that ended up playing out for you.
M: There are a couple of different love triangles there.  There’s obviously the one between Bella and Jacob and Edward that Mike is trying to squeeze into.  More of a love rectangle.  And I guess there’s the one between Mike and Jessica and Bella.  You know, Jessica likes Mike.  Mike likes Bella.  Everybody likes Bella. And it sort of doesn’t turn out great for Mike or Jessica.  A lot of this is very indicative of high school heart ache in general, but it’s sort of heightened with these supernatural characters.
Q:  Both of you have a background in theatre.  I wanted to know how that has helped you with your roles for Twilight and New Moon?
A: Well on a logistical note, there was a scene when Jessica and Bella go to the movies, when we were shooting that outside there were like hundreds of girls standing and watching as we shot it.  It was just a nice tool to have experience in front of a live audience.  It seems like a silly comparison, but honestly it helped to kind of block out the fact that all these fans were watching us and to try to just focus on the scene and ignore the fact that they’re all kind of videotaping us from the side lines.

Q: What was your favorite scene to shoot?
Mike: My favorite scene by far was the kind of three way date that happened between Mike and Bella and Jacob.  That horribly awkward moment when Mike asks Bella out to the movies and she tries to turn it into a group thing and then it ends up being the worst case scenario which is that that three way thing.  You know, I’m sure it was certainly not a lot of fun for Mike to go through.  I mean, I can relate, as I’m sure a lot of us can, but it was a lot of fun to do.
Anna: And I would have to say that there is a scene where Jessica and Bella go to the movies.  That was fun because Jessica really likes to talk about herself and Bella is really depressed.  She’s not saying much.  We were just kind of trying to do it all in one take, and Chris told me to just keep talking until we came to a natural stop.  So I stopped and just kind of monologued as flighty, silly Jessica which was a blast.
Q: Does having different directors and different visions for different movies cause any confusion for how you should play your character?
Mike: I think that the directors that we’ve had are very different in terms of style and process, but there seems to be a singular vision in terms of our characters.  Everyone seems to be pretty unanimous about it, and that basically is that we are there to add levity to the franchise and to just represent normalcy in Bella’s life.  Represent  just kind of a real high school experience to give the story some grounding so that people are able to believe the more supernatural fantasy elements.

Q: You talked about the monologueing.  Can you give us some examples of ad-libbing that you were able to do?
Anna: Well, I don’t want to give anything away.  Honestly, we were doing these takes where I just had to keep talking to fill space.  So I am wondering what exactly it was that I ended up saying just as much as anybody.  So I’m looking forward to seeing it and finding out because I have almost no idea what I ended up saying.
Q: You guys are both so great about adding that comedic element into the movies.  You both seem to be able to say a thousand words with your facial expressions.  So I was just curious who were your comedic inspirations as actors?

Mike: Well, for me the whole reason I became an actor was because of Jim Carrey.  I probably watched Ave Ventura Pet Detective a thousand times as a kid.  Man, other than that, a lot of comedic inspiration and actors… guys like… I’m just going to stick with Jim Carrey for now because he sort of jump started the whole thing for me.

Anna: I would have to say Parker Posey has been a favorite of mine for a long time and all the players involved in Christopher Guest films.  But then at the same time more traditional ladies of comedy, you know, the Tina Fey and Kristen Wiigs of the world are very inspirational, I think, as far as women in comedy go.

Q: New Moon is definitely a darker film, but can we expect the same humor that we got form your characters in Twilight?
Anna: I hope so.  I hope that we add some humor, that certainly was the goal.  The films do get darker but the scripts seem to include a little bit for the humans to do, as Mike said, to kind of add a realism and a grounding point for a franchise that is set in a fantasy world.
Mike: Yeah.  What’s a lot of fun for me is that the high school kids really are very isolated from the rest of the story, so even if the overall tone does get more intense as we go along, our role really doesn’t change in that respect.

Q:  This question is for Anna. Melissa Rosenburg, the screen writer, said that she wrote your role kind of as a combination of Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory.  I was wondering if you keep that in mind or do you just kind of stick with Jessica’s mind set.
Anna: I have heard that and I know that she wrote some elements in to incorporate both characters.   I know that they are both kind of the alpha female mean girls of the novels.  One thing about my playing this role was that I felt like the only real way for me to play a girl who, in spite all accounts, should really be tall, thin, and blonde, was just kind of make it really desperate and needy and just a girl who is constantly trying to be liked, and comes of a little pathetic doing it.  So I know that elements of both of those characters are incorporated into the script.  I think the humans have a little more leeway in terms of how we play our characters.  It really only made sense to play it a little awkward and a little desperate.  But really, underneath it all, that’s really what those girls are.  It made sense for me.  That may be what it is on paper, but there’s  only so much I can do to make it kind of mean girl-y.
Q:  What’s the most rewarding things that you’ve been able to do with the fame that you’ve achieved from Twilight.  If it’s charitable or something with a fan.  What’s the most memorable experience due to your fame from Twilight.

Mike: One of the things that I – well really it was a mutual decision that my family and I made really early on is to be committed to some kind of charity work as a way of just keeping me grounded and keeping a good perspective while working in the entertainment industry.  So I have been working with an organization called “Kids With a Cause” for a number of years and we’ve done a lot of really great work.  It’s sort of in transition right now.  With this franchise – with Twilight specifically I was able to raise a decent amount of money for “Kids With a Cause” that went to help feed a lot of kids.  We go down to orphanages in Mexico quite often and bring a lot of supplies and things that they may need.  You know, generally it’s not really charity if you talk about it, but it’s been an incredibly rewarding experience.  And that aspect of it – I wouldn’t trade for anything.
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