Looking pale but awake, Rob apologizes, “I drank so much coffee this morning I might have vomited”. He’s sporting a new haircut, “It’s for my next movie. I had to cut it randomly. I thought about shaving it off, but I thought of only cutting one part, and I liked it so much in the end, that I kept it.” Always with a big smile on his face, and laughing through most of the interview, the superstar shares his thoughts on the finale of the saga that catapulted him to fame.
Analyzing Edward, do you think he’s a week guy? Is he too passive at times, eventhough inside he feels this great passion and love? He’s very romantic too, how do you see him?
I think he’s helpless. I’ve always thought – and if you pay close attention to the character you can see it too – that he’s a guy that has been so lonely for so long that he goes crazy, and that’s why he is the way that he is. That’s all I can think of, whenever I think about him in the first three movies, and how he finds himself more in each movie. It was interesting reading the fourth book, because I didn’t agree with most of his actions. I didn’t like the way he behaved. In the previous books you could understand the reasons behind his actions, and even sympathize with him, but I was not getting him at all in this movie “Why are you doing this?! You’re a whimp!” I really didn’t understand him, and it was fun trying to legitimize those weird actions, and it was an interesting way to close the saga for me. I guess he becomes more of a hero in Part 2 for the first time, though it’s Bella who saves him all the time, for once. But it’s interesting how he’s more impulsive and selfish in Part 1, which makes him go crazy. And in the first movie he’s always orchestrating everything.
Can you talk about what happens in Part 1 and Part 2?
It’s a little unusual, because it’s almost as if this story is about getting married, and I’m playing the girl. I’m the woman obsessed with getting married, and the guy doesn’t want to and she wants everything to be perfect and everything ends up being crap, and she’s disappointed… I’m playing the disappointed bride! It’s so weird, it’s the same thing; in his mind he has a contingency plan for every situation, and he’s going to marry the love of his life and everything is all planned out. She will become a vampire after. But then they have a baby and everything is turned upside down, and he loses his mind. It’s weird playing that version of Edward. He’s so confused and crazy, because in previous movies he’s always collected and in control, he restricts himself, blah blah, and now he’s got nothing, and he goes crazy because he loses that control, he has sex and that shocks him so much to the point that he blames himself for everything, and it’s bigger than everything else that has happened in the saga.
Have you observed a lot of married people? Sounds like you’ve seen too many desperate brides and reluctant grooms.
I know the clichés! I’ve only been to one or two weddings in my life. I’ve been to so many funerals though.
Where were you swimming? They showed a clip at Comic-Con.
That was shot in the Caribbean. They wanted to shoot in Canada, in the middle of winter. I was like, “No way that is happening!” It was fun. A little ridiculous having to do this in the ocean, and trying to look like a statue, but I had to be far enough where it was already deep, so there were two people at the bottom holding a box. If you look closely, you can see that I’m kind of swining. I told Bill, “Please don’t use that take, I look like an inflatable sausage!”.
A girl at Comic-Con asked you about your pecs, did you work out for that?
Yes, I tried not to think about it. Because in the book Edward’s body is described as “chiseled”, blah blah, and I managed to not take my shirt off the entire series like Taylor. I thought it objectified the men or whatever, and I said “No way! I won’t take my shirt off and I will not work out!”, but then I thought “What the heck, it’s the final movie”.
Did you become addicted to it? Collin Farrel once told us that he replaces all his vices with excercise.
No, I didn’t trade my vices. I worked out until I had to take my shirt off, but the next day I stopped. Literally, I stopped. It’s too boring to me.
What did Bill Condon bring to the franchise? You’ve had a different director for each movie. How was Bill like?
I think he understands the humor in the story, and how silly some of the situations are. He’s not afraid to get close to that stuff, unlike David Slade who wanted everything to be so serious like a traditional, scary vampire movie, and I think Chris Weitz would’ve looked for that humor too, but he had the most depressing sequel, where there was no humor at all. Only the first third of that movie is light.
What about filming two movies at once?
For me it was easy because my character doesn’t change so much. For Taylor and Kristen it was hard because they were working with 260 pages. It’s hard to know what you’re doing the next day, and there were days when we filmed scenes for the first movie and scenes for the second movie, and very different scenes they were.
Did you enjoy seeing Kristen getting her vampire make up done for once?
Yes! Because all this time she’s been wearing black contact lenses for Bella, and she said it was so easy. But that’s because ours were painted and they’re super uncomfortable. As soon as she put them on she was all, “You can’t see anything! You think you’re doing something and your face is not showing those emotions!”
You were more tired back then. How does it compare to making movies where you’re friends with everybody, to making a new movie where you don’t know anyone? Is it refreshing?
Yes, sometimes nerves are the best part of doing a new movie, and the more comfortable and familiar you are with everything on a movie set, the easier it is to let go of those nerves, and that’s something that has worried me about working in Twilight. But I’m always doing a scene with Kristen and she will never take a scene lightly, een just for herself, for her own ego, she wil, always try to do the best job pssible, and that keeps me alert. Als, what happens when you’re about to film a scene with people you’ve known for years, you start talking and you don’t mind. I just did Cosmopolis, and there’s so many great actors involved, and the environment is so different. I’ve never been so nervous than when I did the first take, the first rehearsal.
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