It had to be magic, Hardwicke says of turning the YA novel into a major motion picture.
Summit Entertainment
You better hold on tight, spider monkey!
Hardwicke says, You have to rememberTwilightwasntTwilightat that time.
Credit:Summit Entertainment
It wasnt like we were doing a Marvel movie.
Nobody even thought it was going to be particularly successful.
Not even withKristen StewartandRobert Pattinsonin the lead roles.
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in ‘Twilight’.Summit Entertainment
Thats such a memorable scene in the book," Hardwicke says.
You dont want to just do single coverage.
You have to find a more lyrical way to tell this story.
Robert Pattinson in ‘Twilight’.Summit Entertainment
This was the moment where she wanted audiences to start asking, When are they going to get together?
That misses all that beautiful anticipation that the book has, explains Hardwicke.
I love that location with the rocks and the moss.
The famous ‘Twilight’ baseball scene.Summit Entertainment
We had another location, it got snowed in so we couldnt go there.
At the last minute, I had to go find something else.
Thats right near a restaurant.
Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet in ‘Twilight’.Summit Entertainment
Its in the back of the restaurant, by a parking lot, reveals Hardwicke.
We really made it our own little world.
But creating Edward’s skin of a killer wasn’t an easy task.
‘Twilight’ end credits.Summit Entertainment
Hardwicke had to be very particular about when she would show Edward in the sun.
We could not afford that," Hardwicke says.
“We could only afford a couple of sparkling shots.
I actually thought that was more effective though anyway.
Just to see a taste.”
Vampire Baseball
What wouldTwilightbe without that iconic baseball scene?
That was like our team bonding.
Cam Gigandet and Jackson Rathbone were already pros, but the rest of us were [not].
So we had our own baseball training which was really cool, Hardwicke recounts.
I remember thinking, on the page, How are we going to make this look cool?
It took multiple days to film it," Hardwicke says.
“We got rained out.
We had to run to cover sets in the middle [of it].
Ashley [Greene] had to learn how to pitch.
Nikki [Reed] had to learn how to slide into the base.
That was just fun.
We just had fun.
That was one of the dreams of my life, to shoot that scene, says Hardwicke.
I cant imagine it with any other song.
When you get in the zone, you cant help but be creative as a director.
Fun fact: Hardwicke also came up with You better hold on tight, spider monkey!
I realized that sometimes its just really hard to act when you dont have any lines.
So I wrote like 10 lines and that was one of them.
And he read them all and he goes Hold on tight, spider monkey!
She made that the first scene the cast and crew shot.
Otherwise if you dont shoot those big scenes first, you just worry about them.
Its like a weight hanging over your head the whole time.
That was such a complicated scene,” she continues.
“It was pretty hectic because it was all mirrors.
With a limited budget, Hardwicke was faced with trying every trick in the book.
For example, during that fight scene the crew ended up using melting string cheese for James skin.
Nikki Reed told me one day, she goes, Rob has a very striking voice.
Like an old blues singer.
You wouldnt even believe its Rob, Hardwicke says.
Eventually, she convinced Pattinson to re-record in the closet of a friends home in Venice, CA.
He just started playing and we recorded it.
I took that recording and put it in the movie.
I thought it worked and raised the [scene] to a whole other level.
Its just so soulful and gut-wrenching.
Finding the perfect song for the final shots of the film was a tricky task.
She put [Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron & Wine] on and I was transported instantly.
So she and Rob [Pattinson] started dancing to it and I could see it, feel it.
I knew that was it.
I thought, Let me give them their due so people will know.
Everybody had their footage with their name on it, she says.
Sometimes Id be on the set and Id think, Oh my God.
Were in this beautiful forest.
Lets just get beautiful moments.
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