‘Twilight’ Studio Worried About Casting Robert Pattinson, Asked Catherine Hardwicke: Can You ‘Make This Guy Look Good?’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Robert Pattinson needed a makeover to transform into Edward Cullen, according to “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke.

While appearing on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast to mark the 15th anniversary of the beloved 2008 film, Hardwicke recalled how studio Summit Entertainment was skeptical Pattinson could “look good” as the heartthrob character.

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“When he came over to my house, he had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time,” Hardwicke said of first auditioning Pattinson. “I sent it to Summit and he went over to meet them. They called me back and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?'”

Hardwicke continued, “I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones? We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’ But they didn’t believe it at first. He walked over there with a stained shirt…It was Rob.”

The helmer added that when Pattinson and co-star Kristen Stewart first met, they had a “fun audition” together, but that Hardwicke was wary of how their chemistry would translate onscreen.

“I thought, ‘It works not just in person, but it works onscreen.’ I had to be sure,” she said. “Of course, in person, I just got carried away, but you have to be sure — does it really translate [to the screen]?”

Hardwicke also confirmed that along with Pattinson, actors Ben Barnes, Shiloh Fernandez, and Jackson Rathbone (who later played Edward’s adoptive brother Jasper in the films) were among the final contenders to lead “Twilight.”

Pattinson was age 21 when he auditioned for “Twilight,” and the actor remembered that it was a “strange story” behind the romance between a centuries-old vampire and his soulmate who happens to be a high schooler. The “Batman” star previously admitted in a GQ interview to also taking a Valium before meeting with Hardwicke, leading him to have a “quite spacey, detached kind of thing in the audition, which must have worked for the character.”

A “Twilight” TV series is currently in the works sans the original stars. Author Stephenie Meyer is expected to be involved in the TV series, and film franchise producers Wyck Godfrey and Erik Feig will executive produce. Sinead Daly is attached to write the show.

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