1 During filming, Kristen was very serious about watching her scenes being played back. Immediately after finishing a scene, she would make her way over to the monitors, and often covered the screen with her robe so that she could watch it alone. Wonder what she thought about her kissing scenes with Robert Pattinson? If we were her, we’d definitely be wanting another take. And another. And another…
2 While we watched, cast and crew filmed scenes for Bella’s high school cafeteria at the David Thompson Secondary School in Vancouver. Weirdly, the school was being used at the time, so as soon as the bell went the corridors filled with hundreds of stampeding students heading for the gym to peer through the glass, desperate to get a glimpse of the famous cast.
3 Bella is pretty reckless in this movie, dirt-biking and jumping off cliffs. But Kristen didn’t do her own stunts. ‘They wouldn’t let me!’ she complains. ‘I wish I could. I got to jump off a little platform about 3ft high for the cliff scene. For the dirt biking, I got pulled on a motorbike that had this big, dorky training wheel on it,’ she laughs.
4 Luckily, the birthday party scene where Bella cuts herself and vampire Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) can’t resist the smell of her blood, wasn’t too gory on set. ‘Vampires don’t need a massive amount of blood to get feisty,’ says Nikki Reed who plays Rosalie. But Jackson got so worked up during the attack he knocked Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) down and scared Kristen Stewart. Rathbone’s co-stars had to physically restrain him during the scene. ‘I was just going for it,’ he explains.
5 We caught Taylor Lautner in a very uncomfortable harness attached to wires on a huge crane. The ex martial arts champion did a lot of his own stunts, and would run, leap and fly 10ft in the air on wires – then stop with a painful-looking jolt. That’s when CGI makes him a werewolf. ‘My character Jacob is the only wolf that can transform in mid-air, he just snaps and all his clothes fly off!’ Taylor says. We’ll look forward to that.
6 We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw how much sweet little Taylor had bulked up to play Jacob in New Moon. His hot new body was the result of some serious training, not to mention a hardcore diet regime. ‘The hardest thing for me was the eating,’ he tells us. ‘I was on 4,000 calories a day and had to shove as much food in my body as possible, and hit the gym five days a week. Even now my trainer is always bringing me snacks between shots.’ We spied Taylor using resistance bands to do strength-training exercises in his downtime to keep those muscles pumped.
7 In New Moon, Edward steps out into the sunlight in order to expose his sparkling skin and thus the Volturi vampire clan to the world. And in this film, Rob’s sparkly skin special effect will be much better than the last one. Director Chris Weitz says, ‘It was very subtle in the first film. This time we made a 3D model of Rob, so we were able to map every move he made and build an effect that really feels like the light is coming from inside him, and there will be lens flare, as if you were looking at a diamond with the sun shining on it.’ Watch out for that 3D model of Rob for sale on eBay soon!
8 In this scene from the film, Taylor really had to suffer. ‘I was shirtless, only wearing shorts. It was 35°F (2°C) outside and I was being drenched in water that was so ice-cold, I was absolutely freezing. Thank God the scene was only four minutes long.’ But Tay, we’re eternally grateful.
9 For the scene where Bella and Jacob go on a date to the movies with the hapless Mike tagging along, The Old Paramount Theatre in Vancouver was used for the exterior shots. To our horror we discovered these days the inside of the theatre is a lap-dancing club. They must have had to shoot the interior shots somewhere else…
10 The school basketball courts were home to wardrobe and make-up trailers, and as they walked to and fro, Rob and Taylor had minders shading them with enormous golfing umbrellas to shield them from prying camera lenses. Says a minder, ‘Paparazzi are always trying to get on set dressed in camouflage, hiding in bushes, leaping out and disrupting shooting. It’s easier just to keep it quiet where Rob and Taylor are.’ We tell them the big brollies are a bit of a giveaway.
11 In Stephenie Meyer’s book, the regal Volturi live in the ancient Italian city of Volterra, a real town in Tuscany, Italy. For the movie, the production crew used Montepulciano, an ancient walled city also in Tuscany. But being medieval, the piazza and city hall gave the director the amazing shot he needed for when Bella races across the fountain to save Edward.
12 The night shoots in Vancouver’s Capilano Park Forest went on until around 4am, and the hardest scenes were Bella’s screaming nightmares about Edward. The crew recreated her entire bedroom in the middle of the woods, Kristen had to sob and scream for hours, and while everyone else wrapped up warm, Taylor Lautner spent most of the shoot with his shirt off. Shame.
13 The story of Twilight is set in Forks, Washington, the rainiest, most cloud-covered place on earth. As vampires can’t go out in the direct sunlight without their skin sparkling and drawing attention to themselves, this is a handy place to live. Unfortunately, Vancouver was so sunny when we were there, Rob couldn’t shoot his exterior scenes. ‘I’d be glinting,’ Rob laughs.
14 We spied Rob having his famously bouffant hair given a quick trim on set. Apparently, this happened every week to 10 days while shooting the movie. Plus, he had his barnet re-styled on-set twice a day by New Moon hairstylist Thom McIntyre, to make sure it remained permanently in its signature tousled state. Diva? Rob? No.
15 In the books, Jacob’s home is a red house, and the production crew found the perfect wild location in the middle of Vancouver’s National Forest. Only problem was, the house was green. ‘It was important to the fan base to keep the red of Jacob’s house. They know it that way, and they wanted it that way. So we ended up painting the whole house red to match the book.’ Hope the owners liked it.
16 Kristen turned 19 while shooting New Moon and celebrated by working all day! Luckily the crew secretly planned a big birthday cake for her. She didn’t know a thing.
17 As Twilight was shot in Portland, Oregon, and New Moon in Vancouver, British Columbia, Bella’s house had to be taken down, moved to Canada, and rebuilt, piece by piece, both the interior and the exterior. But it’s not quite the same as it was in the first movie. There’s a whole new bay window on the side of the house, so Jacob can climb up to her bedroom at night.
18 To kill time, the cast played catch between scenes as Taylor always has a football with him. ‘As soon as I’m done filming I’ll play catch with anybody who will play catch with me,’ he says. ‘Kristen and I play catch all the time and she has a really good arm. She’s extremely accurate.’
19 Kristen nearly got hurt by one of the werewolves. Alex Meraz, who plays Jacob’s tribe member Paul (far left), got carried away and became aggressive towards her in the scene in which Jacob introduces his pack brothers to Bella. Alex says, ‘The wolf pack stays up all night looking for who’s killing people, so I thought it’d be a great idea to stay up for 10 days straight.’ When it came to the scene, he was screaming his lines and grabbed Kristen by the throat. ‘The producers freaked out – no one touches Kristen!’
20 Ashley Greene who plays Alice, the vampire who can see the future, got to drive a real Porsche while shooting in Italy. ‘It was fun,’ says Ashley. ‘I worked with a stuntman before driving it and learned how to do a bunch of things. Then I drove the Porsche in a scene and stopped about 2in from a wall!’
