Author Stephenie Meyer at the L.A. premiere of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.
At the recently held Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 press conference, Cullen actors Nikki Reed and Peter Facinelli, director Bill Condon and author Stephenie Meyer shared their thoughts and experiences of this pop-culture phenomenon franchise, fan encounters, working with each other and what they've learned over the years from the characters they portray. Below are some of their most memorable quotes.
Nikki Reed: I guess I've learned that it's OK if the world doesn't like you. Sometimes playing a character that's not the most likable can be challenging because a lot of times people think that you're a reflection of who you play. I've learned to really stand by the character that I play but also find a healthy balance and separate myself enough and defend her and yet defend our differences.
Peter Facinelli: I spent so much time trying to stay out of the sun because the more color you had, the more makeup you had to wear. You had to put more coats of paint on your face to look paler. I remember going to my daughter's soccer game. I looked like the Unabomber.
Nikki Reed, on fan encounters: One time I had a girl ask me to marry her, which I thought was kind of awesome...I said, are you 18? And she said no, but my mom said it's OK when I am.
Stephenie Meyer on continuing the franchise: I've thought about it. There was a time when I thought I'd never stop writing about vampires. There are pieces of their stories written. There's all this in my computer. I'm not going to say no right now. I really don't have much drive towards vampires. There's so much else going on and sometimes you want to get into a new world. The characters are always going to be alive for me, so who knows.
Nikki Reed: I've learned one really important thing just observing the whole [
Twilight phenomenon] situation: Fame does not mean success. It's great being a part of something that's so well known, but we all have to do good work after this. It's coming to an end and so now it's about what choices we're going to make and what we're going to do with our lives.
Peter Facinelli: The harshest critics are the fans because they've lived with these books and they have the visions of these movies already in their heads. If most of the fans like them…you can't please everybody, but if you get most of those fans that like them, I think that we've done our job.
Stephenie Meyer on the politics of Breaking Dawn: The politics of it is something I never think about when I'm writing. It's about a story that's interesting to me. I'm not going to say Breaking Dawn doesn't get weird, because it does. I was exploring what it means to be a woman, particularly to be a mother, because that's a big part of my life…I've always been really fascinated with the idea that 100 years ago, if you were going to have a baby, you literally were saying, "I could die. I am taking my life in my hands to do this." And there's courage to that that we don't have to develop. I'm fascinated with that kind of woman, that woman that makes the choice that she's going to risk her life. It's like being a soldier, and it's not something I ever had to do, so I like to explore things that I didn't have to do, in writing. I never became a vampire either.
Director Bill Condon, on how Robert Pattinson blamed Kristen Stewart for the rating on the honeymoon scenes: I think that's true. She got very into it.
Stephenie Meyer, on Bella's birth scene: With the birth scene, it was so emotional. It wasn't about that this is gory and we're slathering [on] all the cream cheese and raspberry jelly. Edward is losing Bella. Rob's performance was so heartbreaking that I'm going to admit, yes, I teared up.
Nikki Reed: My favorite scene between Taylor and I is actually not in the movie. I go to serve him food and I bend the bowl into a dog bowl and I write Fido [on it] and he hits me in the head with it and it's very dramatic, and I just thought it was sort of a great presentation of who Rosalie is…Taylor's wonderful. And he's great with his shirt on, too.
Director Bill Condon, on one of the last scenes that was filmed with Rob, Kristen, and Taylor:
We ended at dawn. I think it took everyone by surprise how emotional that was, that they wouldn't be playing those characters together again. In typical fashion, everyone got emotional, then Kristen cut [into] it with a joke... Everyone runs off and it's just her and Rob. I call cut. She takes a beat, and then she starts running in that wedding dress into the forest saying, "Jacob, come back, come back! I made a mistake!"
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