The fansites that had representatives at Comic Con were invited to participate in a round table interview with Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, and Kellan Lutz.  I have to say, this was the most unexpected and off the wall interview I’ve ever been a apart of.  At the very start, Kellan took us down a road that none of us expected! But even though it all, it was obvious that these cast members have bonded and become more than just co-workers through the way they can poke fun and laugh at each other.  

To make it easier to read, Ashley is in purple, Jackson is in red, and Kellan is in blue.  Everything in black is something that one of the fan site ops said as a question or as a response to their comments.  

Fan site interview with Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, and Kellan Lutz.

July 12 2012. Hard Rock Hotel, San Diego, California

If you could do anything besides acting, what would you do?

Kellan: Invent. I love inventing, that’s my first passion. So I would just love to create a bunch of patents, I have a book of 50 right now. So I’d love to be a mad scientist who plays around with chemistry, and solves all the world’s problems and creates a few of them himself.

Did you ever have a mad scientist lab kit when you were a kid?

Kellan: I did. I still do. It’s kind of grown to a “Ren and Stimpy” kind of lab, which is fun.

And who’s your favorite scientist?

Kellan: Michio Kaku. He deals with wormholes. Check him out. He’s great.

Now we’re all going to have to Google him!

Kellan: Him and Albert Einstein, they’re both so ahead of our time. It’s just fascinating to read about them, what their theories are on loopholes and everything else. It’s fascinating stuff.

And if you could play one in a movie, who would you play?

Kellan: Young Albert Einstein.

Jackson: Not Tesla?

Kellan: Tesla is great! Tesla I actually deal with – I have this thing called the Cop Stopper that deals with Tesla’s technology. It’s like a Pokémon ball and you push the button- I want to rob a bank so much – and I’m from the Midwest, so we have like one bank, no security cameras, and so I designed this thing, and I always wondered, you know I watch “Cops” all the time – why doesn’t a drug dealer design a trap door under their car? ‘Cause cops don’t have cameras under the cars, they get you for throwing stuff out the window! If you got a trap door under your car, boom! You would run over it. It would be genius. They would get out of so much. But my Cop Stopper was a Pokémon ball that you push the button and then Tesla’s coils go in and the chemical compound reactions go, so it’s an electrical ball so once you throw it out the window usually, in my idea of robbing a bank, I’d go through an alley way, and what this Pokémon ball would do, is it hits the metal of the cop car (everyone starts laughing)… see you got me going here! It hits the metal of the cop car and drains it completely dead, so the lead cop car stops, stopping all the other pursuing cop cars and you get away Scott free!

(Laughs)

Kellan: How to rob a bank in Iowa.

….Ok, so Ashley and Jackson! (Everyone laughs)

Ashley: (to Kellan) I’m not letting you anywhere near my house.

Jackson: Ok, what was the question?

If you weren’t acting would you be robbing banks or do something else? (laughs)

Ashley: (to Kellan) Well I know who I’m going to hire you to create a security system for me.

Jackson: It’s the brains and the beauty!

Ashley and Jackson, did you spend time filming away from the rest of the group? Because we kind of get the sense that since Jasper and Alice go off to South America, did you guys spend time filming away from the group?

Ashley: We’re on a beach…

Jackson: We’re on a beach with Mai Tai’s. Free margaritas. (laughs)

Ashley: We were out there doing very important things .

Jackson: Yeah, we were robbing banks in Iowa. We did this really cool thing…using Tesla technology.

Ashley: I found this thing in Kellan’s room.

Jackson: Pokémon balls! (laughs)

Ashley: That we cannot tell you because there’s some secrets in the film, so…

So there were a lot of new people that you guys filmed with for the second part of this movie, was there any sort of initiation for the new folks that came on, something like showing them the ropes, or pranks that got pulled on?

Kellan: It was refreshing for sure.

Ashley: I think we were all excited.

Kellan: We were excited to have some new blood.

Ashley: We were tired of each other! (laughs)

So you let them off easy.

Ashley: I feel like everyone kind of knew someone, like 6 degrees of separation. In Hollywood that is very common. It’s so small that everyone has either worked with someone or knows someone who knows someone and so it was kind of easy and fun. And I think there’s something exciting about being, like, “Hey! Welcome to the set!” and making everyone feel welcome, and making it fun, ’cause everybody knows what it’s like to be the new kid.

Kellan: I have one funny story – because we knew we don’t have fangs. But I remember I told Billy (Tangradi) “Dude, where’s your fangs?”, and he was flipping out because then he would have to run back to the hair and make-up trailer, they would be like “You don’t have fangs.” and then he’d run back and I’m like, “Dude, where’s your fangs,” It was great. A little easy.

Do you think that anything’s lost momentum because you filmed both of the films together, and then you put out Part 1, and now all the new vamps are coming out? So has it been kinda hard to get reconnected with everybody?

Ashley: I honestly haven’t seen a lot people since we wrapped, really, but it’s one of those things when you don’t see someone for three months and then you pick right back up where you left off. I think Twilight is very special circumstance, and a special thing to be a part of, so there’s this weird connection to have.

If you were re-pairing the Cullen’s, who would you pick for your characters to be paired with?

Kellan: In what kind of way? (wiggles eyebrows).

Partners!

Ashley: I think that kind of way.

That kind of way!

Jackson: That kind of way?

Kellan: Massage partners…

Jackson: (acting out what he is saying) Raised eyebrows kind of way? Slow head tilt down into the side and maybe a cock…?

Yes.

Jackson: That was terrible. Yeah, no, I don’t think we should do that… (everyone laughs)

Ashley: A lot of people get mad.

Kellan, you mentioned the wifey kiss on the panel today. Are we going to see some Rosalie and Emmett romance?

Kellan: Yeah, I could’ve sworn they showed it in Part 1. I mean, we did it twice in the movie. Hopefully they show it or I’ll just look like a freak. I’m just saying. But finally Rosalie and Emmett finally share a kiss. And there’s all this sexual chemistry between the two characters, and we never really get to dive into that… and… and… (everyone laughs)

No house breaking?

Kellan: Knock down some houses…it’s all of lot of allusion.

Speaking of that, is there any moments that haven’t made into the films for your characters that you wish did, and are there moments that you were, like, “Thank God that did make it!”

Ashley: Apparently him (Kellan) making out Rosalie did not make it in.

Kellan: You know, they both got backstories, and I never really got to show my backstory.

Ashley: Mine didn’t get shown! (Pause)

Kellan: What movies? No, Ashley’s didn’t as well. It was Rosalie’s and Jasper’s. And I wish we could do… there was an excerpt that Stephenie Meyer wrote of “Emmett and the Bear,” and I loved it. It really showed that connection of Edward and Emmett. And I’d loved to see a little backstory of how Emmett reminded Rosalie of a little boy that she had really loved. And how she fell in love with Emmett, and how he was almost dying from the attack, and how she saved him. And I think that’s the one thing that was really lacking is their connection, Rosalie and Emmett’s, and how it’s so pure and strong, and why Emmett just views Rosalie as this guardian angel, you know? I wish they had shown that.

Jackson: I wish they had shown the end of my backstory coming into the Cullen clan, because I think that was really amazing, and magic and beautiful.

Ashley: Yeah.

Jackson: And yeah, we just get into it like, “Civil War! On a horse!”

Ashley: Bye! I was like, “Where is Alice in this?” There’s like a Maria somewhere.

Jackson: Yeah, she’s like, “Who is this Maria chick?”

Ashley: Who is this lady?

Jackson: She comes up, like (bangs the table for emphasis) “I hate this story!” Get to the good part.

Ashley: This is so stupid. (sarcastic) “Are you still filming that? Is that what you’re doing today? That’s great.”

Jackson: Yeah, it would’ve been nice to kinda go into that. I think what Stephenie did with these books is that she created this amazing tapestry with all these, lush, lush textures, you know? Every character is deep, and every character has this side to them that gets revealed here and there in the books, and sometimes it’s really hard to translate that into a film series, even when you have a franchise five films long, it’s still not enough time to really go into it, and dig it.

Ashley: The movies would be two and a half hours long – each of them.

We wouldn’t mind. We would go to them.

Ashley: No, this is the point – you need to keep everyone wanting more. Every character has so much depth, and there was so much thought that went into it, but it would’ve taken away at some point from the main story, and everything I think kind of was woven together really beautifully, so that you cared about everyone, and everyone had their own story, but everything helped the main plotline. And at some point if you had gone into all of our stories in depth that would’ve just kind of been all over the place.

So I asked this at the other panel that we had. Is there anything specific that you learned from your character after all of these years of being with them?

Ashley: Well…

Jackson: You mean learned about ourselves or what we learned about the characters?

That you’ve taken away from the character that’s changed you from your character?

Jackson: I think you always take away a little bit of a character with you, and it kinda like hangs on you for a bit, and then as time kind of goes and wears off a little bit, you know? So I don’t know, for a while there I was playing Jasper so kinda stiff and basically with the idea that he was coming from the army and coming from that world and kind of, ‘uncomfortability’ with it. There was a while there where I found myself always standing sort of just like… (Jackson poses with back straight) being very serious, and it’s not like I am at all. I’m not a very serious person. I’m kind of a goofball. And, yeah, that was kind of with me for a long time. And I just really like the character, and I love the story, I think it’s a very strong character and I respect him. It’s interesting; I respect the character that I play. I don’t understand it, but I do. That’s a good thing. Jackson: I think so, I think so. I never felt like that before with a character.

Ashley: He’s very upstanding.

Jackson: He’s an upstanding guy. Yeah, I like him. He’s good.

Ashley: I like him, too.

Jackson: He can come to my birthday parties.

Ashley: He’s alright. You can bring him next time we hang out.

Jackson: Totally.

Thank you to Ashley, Jackson, and Kellan for talking with us!