What would it have been like if our favorite sad-boy vampire, Edward, was instead played by Henry Cavill...aka SUPERMAN? Things would be a lot different! However, Henry was actually Stephenie Meyer’s first choice for the role of Edward Cullen. When it came down to casting, Henry was too old to play the permanent 17-year-old.
While both guys are outrageously handsome, we’ve got to admit… we just don’t see Henry playing Edward. Maybe it’s because we’re so used to Robert Pattinson’s Euro-charm, but it would just be wrong to be anyone else. All’s well that ends well though. Henry went on to land one of the biggest roles in superhero history, and Robert arguably starred as the biggest heartthrob of the decade.
Again, with the almost casting choices! We could definitely see the role of Bella Swan being played by actress Jennifer Lawrence. She is a powerhouse actress, as we’ve seen with the Hunger Games franchise. However, Kristen Stewart brought a mousey aspect to Bella’s personality that Jennifer’s commanding presence may not have portrayed.
However, if J. Law were to play Bella, we may have gotten a little better acting. As you know, that first movie was cringey at best when you rewatched it a few years later. Jennifer got her role, though. Katniss was a much more fitting role, and Kristen did Bella justice… well at least in the second and third movies. Sorry! But it’s true.
As we’ve learned over the years, Hollywood has failed to do Native Americans justice on the big screen since the beginning. Their stories are told all wrong, their culture is portrayed negatively, and real Native Americans were rarely cast for roles portraying native people. That’s something the Twilight franchise tried to correct.
For The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the actors playing the parts of the wolf pack were required to show documentation of their Native American ancestry and prove that they could represent their Native American heritage. This was a big step in the right direction in terms of casting. Hopefully other studios will follow suit.
If the Twilight saga was known for anything, it was those steamy scenes between cast members. We were absolutely obsessed with Bella and Edwards near-forbidden romance. Their chemistry and tainted love made checking out of the scene impossible! They nailed that senior year of high school love affair that we’ve all had.
It’s no secret that chemistry like this takes practice. Some directors even bring in intimacy coaches that help the castmates ease into the romance with adequate boundaries and respect. Director Catherine Hardwicke took a different approach. She had Robert and Kristen do their first chemistry read on her own bed!
One of the distinguishing features of vampires from humans in the Twilight movies were those mesmerizing eyes. Switching from honey gold when the vampires have curbed their appetite for blood to bright red when they’re ready to pounce on their nearest victim, it became obvious that actors would need to wear colored contacts.
Yes, we’re sorry to tell you that those sultry golden eyes aren’t real at all. But the vampires weren’t the only cast members that had to change their eye color. In fact, Kristen Stewart also had to wear brown contacts to match Bella’s description from the book! Hers were so natural looking, we would have never known!
Actress Nikki Reed played Edward's sister, Rosalie Hale. Nikki naturally has dark brunette hair. But for the first movie in the franchise, Twilight, Nikki bleached her hair for the role. After the extreme bleaching, her hair started falling out! So, she opted to wear a wig for the rest of the movies to protect her natural hair.
If you didn’t know, routine bleaching on naturally dark hair is extremely damaging to your hair, and, over time, it will dry your hair to a point that it will break off and fall out! There’s no point in risking your locks when you can just throw on a wig. A nicely made wig looks better on TV anyways.
Nikki Reed wasn’t the only person who chose to wear a wig on set. Kristen also wore a wig for Breaking Dawn: Part 1 because she had to cut her hair short and dye it for her role for The Runaways, another movie that she was starring in at the time. The edgy cut just wouldn’t fit Bella Swan’s character in the Twilight saga.
The wig she wore in Breaking Dawn: Part 1 was pretty convincing, though. They kept it natural and similar to her real hair. If she didn’t tell it was a wig, we would have never known! One down side to wearing a wig for all those hours on set is that after a while, they start getting a little uncomfortable and itchy.
Another person whose hair was a little suspicious there towards the end was Robert Pattinson. He had to wear a wig for reshoots of Breaking Dawn: Part 2 because he shaved his head after the bulk of the shoot. Most of the stars had to dye their hair for their characters, so it would make sense that after all was finished, he would want to start over.
If you look closely, you can see subtle differences in his hair between scenes. However, the costuming and styling team did an amazing job matching to his real hair. We’re pretty sure we all knew about fifteen guys who got that same haircut… and maybe wore it a few years too long. So, you could say that Rob may be a bit of a hair influencer.
Another star we could have seen in the franchise was Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical. The teen star at the time auditioned for the role of Leah Clearwater in the beginning, but the role ultimately ended up going to Julia Jones. Julia did a great job as Leah, and honestly, Vanessa wasn’t missed.
It’s wild to think about how different things could have been if the casting choices were different. Having another teen idol in the mix could have potentially taken focus off the main storyline. One thing’s for sure, everyone wanted in on the success that was happening with the franchise—even stars who already had successful roles in the mix.
Drew Barrymore has been around Hollywood since she was a young kid, and she reportedly made the shortlist for eligible directors to take charge for Eclipse. Drew has been known for her own starring roles, but she’s also a great director due to her extensive experience in showbiz! With such compelling characters, it’s no wonder she wanted to sink her teeth into the storyline.
Ultimately, David Slade was chosen to be the director for the movie. Drew Barrymore told MTV during an interview in 2009 that she seriously wanted to work with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart saying, “Oh, I wish that I was! I adore that project and I adore the team that’s making it.” Her directorial debut was Whip It! a comedy about a all-girl roller-derby team, which is so Drew!
Unlike most of us who couldn’t wait another second to get our driver’s license, Robert Pattinson wasn’t even licensed to drive a car when he was cast as Edward! He had to learn how to drive just for the movie. All that learning paid off because you can see him pulling some pretty cool driving stunts. Hopefully those were on purpose…
All those scenes where Edward sped onto the scene in his flashy luxury cars seem so funny after knowing he didn’t even know how to drive before the project! At least he had an excuse to get his license, otherwise who knows how long he would have waited before learning? We’re sure he has a private driver now.
If the ongoing unconventional romance wasn’t juicy enough, the storyline for Bella and Edward also contained a much-anticipated wedding scene that seriously changed the bridal world for most millennials. Since the first book, we all dreamed about what it would be like to marry a glimmering mysterious vampire.
After reading the books, we all knew that the movie would have an iconic wedding scene so keeping the wedding dress a secret while shooting was very important. Prying eyes wanted to know what the most important scene in the story would look like before anyone else. However, if the secret got out… it just wouldn’t be as impactful. Just ask Alice, she knows what it’s like to see the future.
As we all know Breaking Dawn: Part 1 got a little spicy as Edward and Bella’s relationship progressed into marriage. The movie that made it to the big screen already verged on the line for PG-13, but before it was edited the scenes were a lot more scandalous than what we saw! The fact is two newly-weds on their honeymoon are going to get a little frisky.
The original cut of the movie allegedly included a lot of scenes that showed off Edward’s butt! This earned the movie an R rating, so they understandably scaled back the nudity, which seems like the best choice for the times and audience of the movie. Surely the original cut is floating around somewhere though.
Another shocking casting choice that almost happened was Michael Copon playing Jacob in New Moon. Obviously recasting a major character in a franchise would have been a huge risk, but Jacob wasn’t an immortal seventeen-year-old, he should naturally age up. However, Taylor Lautner still had a baby face, which became an issue for the storyline.
The studio execs wanted to cast Michael as the new Jacob and actually announced the recast too soon, which led to a lot of confusion. This may or may not have been a publicity stunt, but we can definitely see how a recast should have been considered to show an “older” Jacob. They compensated for this by beefing up Taylor Lautner to show off his new body.
Speaking of Robert Pattinson’s butt, he almost tore a muscle in his butt cheek while filming an aggressive fight scene during the first day of filming Twilight. No wonder there is a whole industry focused around stunt doubles! Getting the body movement of an apex predator vampire is hard on us mere mortals!
A torn muscle in the butt could have been a major set-back for filming, so it’s a good thing that he was able to recover and keep filming other scenes. Obviously, he would have been pretty sore, but couldn’t show it because vampires don’t get sore! No wonder he had that wincing look on his face for the entire first movie.
