Twilight Saga – New Moon (Volturi) Daniel Cudmore & Charlie Bewley : Interview

New Moon, the latest installment in the Twilight Saga is fast becoming not only the most anticipated film of the year, but the decade. It sounds far fetched, but recent survey’s have suggested that Twilight has now taken over from boy wizard Harry Potter as the most popular teen book.

Amara Dumlao from Skewed and Reviewed sat down with actors Daniel Cudmore and Charlie Bewley, two actors taking on the roles of the “hot-ass” Volturi – Felix and Demetri to discuss all things Twilight and the future that awaits them.

What was the whole process like filming New Moon after all the new hype around surrounding the sequel to Twilight?

Charlie Bewley: It was a very very protected environment filming the movies, you know. In Vancouver there was constantly people who were in the periphery of the film set [who had to] stop the paparazzi… to spot people in buildings way off and have to call up, like, cops and shit – it was amazing man.

Seriously, big screens would be erected with black bounce boards to block people [from] taking photos from the buildings around the place.

Daniel Cudmore: [We had to use] Umbrellas just, like, while you’re walking so people can’t get photos of everything… before it comes out.

Charlie Bewley: It is indicative of how big the Twilight thing is… People come from far and wide to just be in the city when you’re shooting and obviously they just want to see you… we were subject to mass fan hysteria – like 5,000 screaming girls in a place the size of two football pitches (fields) when we were trying to shoot a movie… It was kind of like another world for us shooting there.

Were you guys given any tips on how to deal with this huge (Twilight Saga) phenomenon that is happening?

Daniel Cudmore: Not really, we’ve had that media training… it was basically go to work and do your job. To survive all of this… you would hope that you’ve had [good] training from your parents… [so] you know who you are as a person and [that] this is [just] a job that you’re doing, and you know if someone is enthusiastic about you or the character, you know you’ve done a good job on building and working on this character…

This kind of thing doesn’t really come around that often, so ya know, just enjoy the ride.

Charlie Bewley: Soak it up.

When you received your character how much time did you have to prepare for that?

Daniel Cudmore: The funny thing is, with acting, is that your audition process – you usually get it the night before the audition and to build the character you’ve got a short amount of time to really build a lot. And so you want to do the best job you can the night before to build this [character], to try and land the job.

Then you go in, hopefully confident in the amount of work you’ve been able to put into it. Sometimes, like ya know, if you’re holding a second job you’ve [only] got hours in the morning to hammer it out, you’re half asleep, you’ve [only] had two hours of sleep, you’re running on coffee.

But once you’ve built the base of what it is and they give you the go ahead, you’ve got the gig, then it was just like we had…

Charlie Bewley: … Too much time.

Daniel Cudmore: It was almost too much time.

Charlie Bewley: Ten weeks man, it was way too long.

Daniel Cudmore: Like you talked about earlier, building a character also helps when you are on set, because there is a lot of other outside factors – whether it be the set, whether it be costume, whether it be makeup, these wicked contact lenses that we got to wear – they add and help everything that you get to do.

And the beautiful Italian set probably helped a lot too…

Charlie Bewley: That is exactly what we’re talking about. You read the books and get kind of a good a idea about what the set is going to be like but you don’t know. Certainly my interpretation was slightly different, it wasn’t as grandioso as it is going to be [in the movie New Moon].

The set was big enough as it was, the sound stage housed this huge vault, like it was a cylindrical vault. The attention to detail is [to the point where you] almost can’t tell until you touch it whether it is stone or marble or whatever. On top of that they’ve got this green screen that goes above you, this big circular green screen, which they then fill in with CGI… so we don’t even know how big it is gonna be in the final thing.

Did they give you more exposition about your characters?

Daniel Cudmore: The partnership that the two characters have had, Felix and Demetri, has worked like clockwork for so many years. I mean you’ve got the ultimate tracker and a badass character in Demetri who can just, in his own right, do this job.

But then you’ve got Felix who is just raw power, animalistic, sort of aggression… they’re both great.

Charlie Bewley: It’s like the good cop bad cop thing, that’s why cops go around it twos, right. There is a brilliant relationship that unfolds.

Me and Dan knew each other fairly well before we even stepped onto the set… we had the partnership going already and from the books you understand your part in the relationship.

You say my character is this very sinister evil character, maybe he is underneath it all, but he covers very well with this “real” front, this real kind of pretense of charm. “Everything is going to be OK, it’s fine this isn’t such a big deal you know just come with us”, etc. Then suddenly you realise you’re in the shit… When this guy starts… he just puts his hand on your shoulder.

Daniel Cudmore: My biggest challenge on set… was watching all this action go down. Not being able to be part of it. That’s just what Demetri is – he wants to be part of it but he knows his time will come later on in the books. The hardest thing for me as an actor was just was to put a lid on all that to know – you have all of these powers and just to want to run riot and really express your energy as an actor and as an a character. [So] having to put a lid on it was really quite tough.

Of all the vampire characteristics that are throughout vampire lore, which one would you prefer to have?

Charlie Bewley: To be honest with you, I never really thought of vampires as particularly cool before this. It never really appealed to me, the whole vampire world. And I think that’s a testament to what Stephenie Meyer has done here and what a lot of very contemporary pieces, vampire books, like True Blood, and stuff is doing right now which is… making them accessible to people. Particularly this younger generation of teenagers.

I think it has a lot to do with the aesthetic and the emotional writing of vampires who might have before been thought to be impassive and devoid of emotion. Suddenly, these monsters, they suddenly have emotions. You have to wonder why Twilight is so big and I think those two reasons are key in that.

But certainly when I got the audition to play Demetri, I had heard a lot about Twilight and this Edward guy, the guy who was playing him, this English guy [Robert Pattinson]… I want to do something like that.

What’s my character? My character is Demetri, he is essentially a more elite vampire and that suddenly became massively appealing to me, to be bestowed with those powers and strengths, and then to be suddenly playing/representing this character that is so well celebrated in these books. It was a huge honour when I got the call, I am not unaware of how huge this film is… this is a real trip!

What did you guys learn about yourselves in your characters?

Daniel Cudmore: With my character, because of that aggression… as a society we have always been taught to push that away, push that down. That it isn’t how we run, it’s not how we live as human beings because it just doesn’t work that way. But it is fun to know that you have that there.

Charlie Bewley: I’m on exactly the same page as that as well. I have this side of me that is a very European flamboyant, I won’t say “queeny”, but it’s borderline [and] could be perceived as homosexual, but that came out in my character and I embraced it.

And a lot of people looked on and said are you a dancer or something, because you look like a dancer. And I’m like “I’ve never danced in my life man, it is just coming out on set”. And I was just swanning like an idiot and more and more people were saying I really like what you’re doing with your character.

It wasn’t just indicative of my character, but it was indicative of me as a person. These things that came out, that I am suddenly allowed to do, I think… since I became an actor, me as a person has become more confident and I have really come out of my shell somewhat.

Have you guys run into Volturi fanatics? Because there is a ton of them out there.

Charlie Bewley: Yeah, I mean, we have a real following don’t we?

Daniel Cudmore: I guess so… they are pretty cool characters to play… Man, it is kind of a dream come true to get to do something like this. We will see. I think the fandom might grow even more, after New Moon comes out with how big it is going to be.

Charlie Bewley: I don’t think anyone realises how big it is going to be. No one realises how big it’s gonna be! I think a lot of guys out there are going to be like… I’ll let my girlfriend go and watch it “yadda yadda”, but as soon as the first week is over you are goning to start to see guys fill up those very few empty seats… because this is more of a guys film than a girls film.

No one really realises that yet. This is an action film; this is a primal aggressive film with stuff in there that is going to freak some little chicks out!

Daniel Cudmore: It’s sad, you still have the love story, now you’ve got the love triangle obviously right, and you’ve got that which is great. But you’ve got the wolf pack which are cast so well and the guys are so cool and did such a great job and you’ve got the Volturi with such great actors…

Charlie Bewley: Thanks man!

Daniel Cudmore: Then you’ve got these fight scenes and you’ve got this action, you’ve got this intensity and then you’ve got this love triangle. I mean it is a pretty cool movie…

THE TWILIGHT SAGA – NEW MOON vamps into Australian Cinemas on 19 November, 2009