Twilight

As most of you know, opening in less than 2 weeks is Summit Entertainments "Twilight" movie. The film is based on the hugely successful Stephenie Meyers book and it’s the story of Bella and Edward….

In case you’re one of the few that doesn’t know the story, "Twilight" is a modern-day love story between a teenage girl and a vampire.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother re-marries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn't expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious and dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a boy unlike any she's ever met.

Edward is a vampire, but he doesn't have fangs and his family is unique in that they choose not to drink human blood. Intelligent and witty, Edward sees straight into Bella's soul. Soon, they are swept up in a passionate, thrilling and unorthodox romance. To Edward, Bella is what he has waited 90 years for – a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy.

Anyway, this weekend was the domestic press junket and I was able to participate in roundtable interviews with most of the cast and director Catherine Hardwicke. Since a number of you are huge fans of the series and are desperate for any and all news…here’s the transcript of my interview with Kristen Stewart.

During our interview she talked about a ton of behind the scenes stories, is she prepared for the upcoming Hot Topic mall tour and a lot more. If you’re a fan of Twilight, you’ll love the interview.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the audio of the interview by clicking here. You can also save the audio to your computer so you can play it on your iPod.

Finally, if you missed the 4 minute sizzle reel and the 15 minutes of behind the scenes footage from Twilight that I posted last night, click here. And here’s the interview I posted with Robert Pattinson

"Twilight" opens November 21^st, like you didn’t know…  

Question: Is it true that Rob Pattinson proposed marriage to you?

Stewart: Yeah. I mean, I don't know how serious he was, but yes.

Question: How did that happen?

Stewart: It just did. We spent a lot of time together, a lot of like really heightened time. We were tired a lot of the time.

Question: You've already been out with the fans at the different premieres. How have the encounters been so far?

Stewart: Entirely positive, but entirely overwhelming. It's sort of like I only have to deal with the fans when I go out to do those events and I just have to stand there for a minute and hope that I can keep a smile on my face and hope that I don't run off at the mouth and say something stupid that they'll put me on a cross for. It's fine. It's good that they can be so passionate about something. I mean, I care about the book just as much as they do.

Question: In your personal life have they found you, either at the airport or at a restaurant – any encounters there?

Stewart: No. Really, no. Once or twice….just like a very sort of quiet and polite girl will come up to me and say, 'Are you, because all of my friends are telling me that I'm stupid and crazy?' I say, 'Yeah.' And she's like….

Question: Is there a sense of responsibility to what the book is and what the fans want when you're doing a movie like this and does that affect your performance?

Stewart: I felt such a responsibility to the story first and to the character. If you don't get to play the part that really compels you then they might die right on the page and no one gets to experience them as you have and that was much stronger than my ideas about the fans. I didn't really know about the fans when I was making the movie. I had tunnel vision and I wasn't paying attention to that. And Summit, our studio, would always be elated on their set visits and everyone was in this celebratory mode this whole time and it was like, 'We haven't even made a movie yet. Have you even look at dailies? Do you even know what this movie looks like yet?' I also think that if you took into consideration everyone's idea of the character considering that they project themselves onto it, I mean she's not distinct and you don't read her as like, 'Oh, wow. That's a character that I can really sink my teeth into.' She's the vessel in which you experience the story, through her. So you put yourself in that position and so I'm never going to satisfy everyone. I'd be playing the most disjointed character. It's really a self-conscious role. It's entirely Kristen in the situation. I didn't have a really distinct character to play. It's just this girl caught up in an extravagant situation.

Question: In the book she's a much more passive character in that you experience Edward's story through her, and yet in the film it can't be that way because she's there and has to be living it.

Stewart: Right. I can't think about that though because then it's very vain and you're thinking, 'Well, I hope that people like me as this character.' It doesn't matter as long as you're staying true to the story.

Question: Was there a lot of internal debate with you about signing onto a film that could be a franchise?

Stewart: I was ready to follow it for as long it decided to go. I would love to do the second, third and fourth. Again, it was that initial responsibility. I can only do a movie if I feel entirely compelled to it or else in every frame I'm just going to look confused.

Question: So there wasn't any hesitation on joining a franchise and possibly being identified with this character for a while?

Stewart: No. If this movie flops or if does fantastically I'm still going to be able to do…this movie is either going to make it easier for me to keep doing the things that I've been doing for almost ten years or it's going to drop me right on my ass and I'm going to keep doing the same thing that I've been doing which are tiny little independent movies that no one sees. So, no. I just came off of a movie where I play a homeless kid, like a really damaged and really broken little kid and she looks nothing like Bella. In fact she's a stripper. So I'm not worried about it and I never really was.

Question: Can you talk about working with Catherine Hardwicke and what that process was like?

Stewart: Catherine, she's actually quite hard to sum up. She's really eccentric. When you first meet her you're like, 'Wow, you're crazy.' I mean, I love this woman. There's something about her. It's hard too because this stuff is going to be written down and maybe it'll be taken in a different way, but she's childlike in a way where she has this understanding of fundamental emotion. She doesn't over complicate things. She takes them for what they are. You might be like, 'Wow, you're just a simpleton. You don't understand.' But it's not that. She's gone through and has cancelled it out. It doesn't matter and she's gone back to the basics. She doesn't lack enthusiasm. She works twenty four/seven and is right there with you all the time.

Question: The 'Entertainment Weekly' story made it sound like Rob was obsessing about the role and that it fell to you and some other people to talk him down from the clock tower a few times. Is that true?

Stewart: Yeah, which was perfect the part. I mean, that's why he had to be in it. Especially when you're on location you're secluded and in this place and we had this big huge cast and they're all actors. They're not just like, 'Oh, we're making this movie.' So even when we went back home at the end of the day, whenever we would hangout it would pretty much revolve around the movie. So we all had that in us, but Rob really sometimes got…we wouldn't be able to shoot a scene. It was like, 'We're not going to be able to get anything in the can if you don't just calm down.' So, yeah, there were times where I had to like sort of do that. And he hated me too when I did that. The problem was that any time you'd say, 'No, you're really good.' 'No! You think that I need that?!' It's like, 'No. I'm just actually being genuinely honest because I really like what's going on here.' I think it had a lot to do with the part that he was playing.

Question: How is that different for you as an actress? Can you turn it on and off easily?

Stewart: It's so dependent on so many things. It changes. I just did this movie 'Welcome to the Riley's', the movie where I play the street kid there's this weight. I mean, it's easy to lie. If you're not doing that then this job is really wearing. There are times when you have to step away and start laughing or else halfway through a sixteen hour day you'll literally collapse. Sometimes you can't and sometimes you can sort of do that.

Question: I know they're doing like a tour of Hot Topic at the mall. Are you involved in that?

Stewart: I think I'm going to two Hot Topics next week.

Question: Are you prepared for that because it seems that the fans are, I want to say the word, passionate.

Stewart: Yeah, that's a good one. That's polite. We did a book signing in Rome that while we were leaving the building I couldn't get to the car. It was actually scary. I was being dragged by security. I wasn't even on my own feet. I was thrown into a van because if they hadn't done it I would've gotten…I was literally picked up and thrown into a van and then it shut and then the van just started shaking. It has nothing to do with you. It's a really surreal experience because you're like, 'God. What?' It's fine. I think based on that experience there's like an underground entrance that we've all been told about. There's heightened security. We're going to be very guarded. I'm not going anywhere unless they've got fifteen big guys around me [laughs].

Question: I know some actors have worn costumes at Comic-Con and walked around, blending right in.

Stewart: I know. I've wanted to do that.

Question: Maybe you could do that for your escape.

Stewart: Yeah, who knows. I don't know. They have those sweatshirts, probably at Hot Topic too, that zip all the way over your head and you're like skulls, skeleton bodies. That would be funny. I'd like to do that.

Question: Are you able to go incognito in public?

Stewart: Yes. I don't know if it's because this is my first incredibly high profile movie or not, but like Rob gets recognized sort of everywhere he goes and I don't.

Question: It's the hair.

Stewart: It's the hair. Totally. He's tall. He stands out.

Question: Are you getting sick of yourself at all with all these banners around the town for 'Twilight'? Or are you enjoying it all?

Stewart: I'm so glad that I like this movie. I'm so glad that I'm proud of this movie and that I stand in it and that I wasn't trampled by the machine that could've taken over. In that case I would be hiding under this table and this interview would've gone terribly. But I'm excited because I'm proud of the movie. It's not why I started doing this though. I don't look at magazines and say, 'Oh, she's so cute. I wish I could do that.' I don't put too much stock in it. It doesn't impress me at all. If the movie is good then great, but if it's not then God, I feel so bad for that person with their face fifty feet tall, all blown up. Some people would be happy with that, that as long as their face was out there they're stoked about it. I'm not like that.

Question: Was there a scene in this film that was deleted for time or whatever that you were sad to see go?

Stewart: I've seen the movie once and nothing stuck out. Well, yeah, one thing stuck out. But it was improvisational and maybe really didn't fit in. It was a scene where we're just walking and talking and doing nothing. I think that they thought it was outside of our characters which I completely and entirely disagree with, but I'm sad to see that go. Some of the lines in the movie are improvised which I thought were all going to be cut because they would say, 'Okay, we're just going to roll MOS and so just ramble off and we're not going to use any of it.' But they actually rolled and some of it is in the movie and that I'm really excited to see.

Question: Like what specifically?

Stewart: The one thing was, and this was a tough day too, when we were in the tree and he takes me up and is showing me the most beautiful view, his favorite view. It sounds so stupid to quote myself in the movie, but I remember the lines. I'm not going to pretend like I don't remember the lines. I say, 'This kind of stuff doesn't exist.' Then he's  like, 'It does in my world.' That's all Rob.

Question: They used that a lot. It's in the trailer too.

Stewart: I know. It's weird.