Catherine Hardwicke was worried about Robert Pattinson not being attractive enough to be cast in ‘Twilight’
Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the now classic vampire-romance film series ‘Twilight’, was in fact rather concerned when she cast Robert Pattinson for the role of Edward Cullen, thinking that he wasn’t attractive enough.
Though the actor has been quite the heartthrob for girls, and even became the defining crush for many teenage girls who saw the films, Pattinson wasn’t exactly Hardwicke’s first choice.
Recalling his audition process, she said: “When he came over to my house, he had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time.”
She added: “After we did the fun auditions (with Kristen) at my house for a couple hours, then I looked the next morning at all the footage I shot and recorded and I thought it worked not just in person but it works on screen. I had to be sure. Of course in person I just got carried away, but you have to be sure it translates to the screen.”
Continuing her statement, Hardwicke said: “Then I sent it to Summit and he went over to meet them. They called me back and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones?’,” Deadline reported.
“‘We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’ But they didn’t believe it at first. He like, walked over there with a stained shirt or something. It was Rob”, she added.
In fact, Henry Cavill was one of the studio’s prime choices before he was cast in ‘The Man of Steel’, something which even Cavill wasn’t aware of until recently. However, he was taken out of consideration when Hardwicke and the producers found ‘The Witcher’ star too old for the role, as he was nearing his 30’s then. Since then though, Hardwicke has called the casting of Pattinson as her best choice.
“They did the kissing scene (Robert and Kristen) and he fell off and landed right there on the floor,” Hardwicke said on ‘The Big Hit Show’ podcast last year. “He fell off the bed. I’m like, ‘Dude, calm down.’ And I’m in there filming with my little video camera, whatever…In the end, Kristen was like, ‘It has to be Rob.’”
“I could tell they had a lot of chemistry, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ I thought Kristen was 17. I don’t want to get into some illegal things,” Hardwicke added at the time. “So I remember I told Rob, ‘By the way, Kristen is 17. In our country, it’s illegal to have a sexual…’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, okay, whatever (sic)’”.
Stewart said of their audition: “Pattinson had an intellectual approach that was combined with ‘I don’t give a f*** about this, but I’m going to make this sing.’ And I was, like, ‘Ugh, same’. And, whatever, we were young and stupid and, not to say that we made it so much better, but that’s what it needed, and that’s what anybody playing those parts needed to feel.”
While the ‘Twilight’ franchise cemented his career in Hollywood as an international star, Robert Pattinson hasn’t exactly loved his role as Edward Cullen, and has openly expressed his dismay and even embarrassment at having agreed to take the job.