Everything "Twilight" Actors Have Said About Their Time in the Franchise (and It's Not All Nice!)

10/26/2024 04:30 AM

From Robert Pattinson calling the story "weird" to Jackson Rathbone sharing he'd be down for a spinoff, see what the stars have said about the famous franchise

More than 15 years after the first Twilight film premiered, many of the young actors who skyrocketed into global fame with the massive franchise are still at the top of Hollywood, earning Oscar nominations and directing projects themselves.

As many of the actors were in their teens and 20s when they landed the roles that would catapult their careers, its no surprise that there are mixed feelings about the films and the fandom they inspired (some more mixed than others!).

From Robert Pattinson's brutally honest takes to Ashley Greene's walk down memory lane for her rewatch podcast, see what the stars of the Twilight franchise have said about the five films.

Robert Pattinson

Over the years Pattinson has not minced his words when it comes to talking about the films that skyrocketed him into super stardom.

During a 2019 chat with Jennifer Lopez for Variety's Actors on Actors series, Pattinson, who played Edward Cullen, said Twilight is "a weird story" and that he found it "strange how people responded."

So it stands to reason that Pattinson also has concerns about fans' attraction to his character, as he believes Edward to be a "weirdo."

"With virtually anyone, the nice guys always seem to come last. You always get weirdos like Edward who seem to attract women for some reason," he told OK! magazine in the U.K, per MTV.

He then went on to say, "If Edward wasn't a fictional character and you met him in reality he is like one of those guys who would probably be an axe murderer or something."

Overall, he said in another interview, he just didn't think "a lot of the stuff" in the movies made "any sense."

"Why are they still going to high school?," he said in an interview with Chris Van Vliet "...They're 100 years old."

Anna Kendrick

"My experience was really unique in that cast," Kendrick recalled to Business Insider earlier this month. "Almost everyone else in the cast had to treat every moment like life and death, good versus evil, our eternal souls are on the line — and all I had to do was show up and make a snarky comment as I kind of pass through the frame."

She added that that difference made her feel like "a bystander" in the fanfare surrounding the franchise.

"I was very grateful to be privy to this kind of cultural phenomenon without it really impacting me in the ways that I think would've felt really challenging and overwhelming," she said. "The fans of those books are so invested that even if you came into the franchise really late and you had one line but you were playing a vampire or a werewolf, they're obsessed with you. They're picking apart every detail of your costume and your gestures and whatever, and I just didn't have that level of responsibility."

Also, her reaction to Alex Cooper trying to get her to engage with the soundtrack ahead of her Call Her Daddy interview is a must-watch.

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Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart, who first stepped into the role of Bella Swan as a teen, experienced all of the insanity of the overnight fame, but as she told Interview magazine in 2015, she appreciates the experience.

"Anybody who wants to talk s--- about Twilight, I completely get it, but there's something there that I'm endlessly, and to this day, f------ proud of," she said. "My memory of it felt—still feels—really good."

All that said, though, she still had a reaction to hearing the word "Bella."

"All I can hear right now when I'm trying to just [recall the movie] is 'Bella'," she said to Variety. "Everyone just referring, constantly to her even if she's not in the scene."

"I was just like 'enough, Bella needs to go to bed, Bella needs to go just chill for a while," she added.

Also to Variety,Stewart explained why Twilight is "such a gay movie."

"I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book," she continued of author Stephenie Meyer. "It's all about oppression, about wanting what's going to destroy you. That's a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love."

Taylor Lautner

Years after the last film premiered in 2012, Taylor Lautner says his perspective on the films — and the impact it had on him — have changed.

"I was always incredibly thankful, and feel super blessed for what it brought me, but maybe there was a little bit of, like, resentment deep in there going like, 'I wish I could have just experienced this part of normalcy,'" Lautner said in 2023. "Now, I wouldn't change it. But I think it needed the growth to get to that place."

Kellan Lutz

After appearing in the first three Twilight films, Kellan Lutz almost didn't come back for Breaking Dawn in part because of how much "waiting" around on sets he did during filming.

"I remember some days we were just waiting on set," Lutz said on an episode of fellow Twilight alum Ashley Greene's podcast, The Twilight Effect (per Business Insider). "Twilight and all the movies were probably the most waiting on set I've ever experienced. For people who know me, I'm very impatient and I like being busy and doing stuff. I'd rather be doing stuff than sitting there, standing there."

Though after pushback from his team, he opted to stay and would appear in all five of the franchise's films.

At the recent PeopleCon in France, Lutz took a trip down memory lane and reminisced about the audition process for the first movie, sharing that he was initially asked to audition for Edward — a character he found "depressing" — and he passed.

When the audition for Emmett came through, he was more drawn to him and went for it, eventually booking the role.

Ashley Greene

When looking back at her time on the set of the five films ahead of her podcast launch, Greene told PEOPLE that the cast went through their trials and tribulations.

"We did this for five years and there was a lot of ups and downs, and some drama, and we were like a family, but also in our 20s, and so there were kind of tiffs here and there," she said in 2022. "So I think, it's one of those things where, for the most part, it was a good experience, but we were human beings, and we were in our 20s. You can imagine who you were in your 20s versus who you are now."

Peter Facinelli

Though it has been more than a decade since the last film premiered, Peter Facinelli told PEOPLE in 2020 that he would gladly reprise his role as the patriarch of the Cullen family if the opportunity arose.

"I love that character," he said. "[He's] so much fun to play and that world is so fun."

More recently, Facinelli compared the multiyear journey he and his castmates went on while making the films to a "long roadtrip" and says the group "feels like family" both "off and on camera."

Jackson Rathbone

As recently as Oct. 23, 2024, Jackson Rathbone jumped on X to share that he would be up for starring in a "Jasper origin film."

In response to a tweet from Variety about "Lionsgate's losing streak," Rathbone said a film about his character's backstory would be a "guaranteed flop-breaker."

In the subsequent thread, many fans pointed out that Jasper's backstory as a member of the Confederate army "does not need airtime" (which Rathbone addresses at length in a secondary thread).

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