“Twilight” cast members talk about working with Bill Condon on “Breaking Dawn”
Director Bill Condon poses for pictures with fans at the Nov. 14 premiere of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" in Los Angeles (AP file)
Bill Condon, the Oscar-winning writer-director of “Gods and Monsters,” “Chicago” and “Dreamgirls,” took on doubly big task when he joined “The Twilight Saga.”
Condon helmed the two-movie finale based on the hefty fourth and last book on Stephenie Meyer’s supernaturally popular book series. He filmed both “Breaking Dawn – Part 1,” which opened a week ago, and “Part 2,” which is due in theaters Nov. 16, 2012.
With last Friday’s theatrical debut of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1,” “Twi-hards” finally get the chance to see Bella and her courtly vampire fiancé Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) get married, take their romantic honeymoon and find their new life forever altered when Bella gets pregnant.
The impending birth not only threatens Bella’s life — an emergency vampire conversion will be her only hope for survival — it also endangers the Cullen clan’s pact with the local werewolves of the Quileute Tribe, including Bella’s best pal, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).
“Breaking Dawn – Part 1″ notched a $139.5 million first weekend domestically and a worldwide launch of $283.5 million.
At the recent press day for the film in Los Angeles, my fellow journalists and I got a chance to ask some of the actors who have been with the franchise since it started about their experience working with Condon:
Taylor Lautner (AP file)
Taylor Lautner:
“Bill he just made us feel so comfortable to begin with. Because it could’ve been a challenge, playing the same character for five movies and you have a different director each time, and then when the new director comes on board sometimes it can take a second to adjust and get on the same page with him. But Bill was so amazing, and he really just made us feel comfortable and open,” Lautner said in a press conference.
“We would say, ‘I think he would do this’ or ‘I think he would say this’ or ‘I don’t think he would do that.’ And Bill was very open about everything, and then Bill would say the same stuff to us. I’ve respected Bill for a very long time, even before I’ve had the opportunity to work with him or found out I was going to work with him. So I was able to completely trust him. All of us were, which was very important as well.”
Peter Facinelli (AP file)
Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen):
“I loved Bill Condon. I thought he was a really interesting choice, an out-of-the-box choice. He was very much an actor’s director, and he really worked with the actors and cared. You could tell that he cared a lot about what we were doing as opposed to just camera angles. Very smart man. Very smart,” Facinelli said in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen):
“I loved working with him. I think he’s just extremely vibrant, like he reminded me of Alice a bit I think in his demeanor. And you could tell he loved beingthere and he loves what he does,” Green said.
Ashley Greene (AP file)
“He was very passionate about this story and about the characters as well, and that’s just a really nice thing. I think he had a lot of respect for what we’d previously done, and he came in saying, ‘These are all the ideas I have’ and really I think kind of brought us to a whole new level and developed the series even more than it is and the characters even more than they are. I think he’s gonna do a really beautiful job. I have full in faith in him.”
-BAM
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The twilight fans are so excited for the 2nd part of breaking dawn after the controversial ending of part 1. The cast seems fond with Bill after he joined the twilight saga and has admired his directing abilities. This will be unforgettable for the cast as well as the fans when Breaking Dawn part2 finally comes out.