The pair had 'a lot of chemistry' during their first meeting, director Catherine Hardwicke shared.
It turns out, Robert Pattinson was very invested in his Twilight audition. In a new interview for The Big Hit Show, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke talked about the struggle to find the franchise's Edward Cullen.
After seeing many handsome actors, they brought in Pattinson, but Hardwicke said she wasn't convinced at first.
"He walked in, his hair was dyed black for some play with these wacky bangs. He was a bit out of shape. His shirt was just all messy, and I'm like, 'Ehh, OK,'" she recalled.
The audition included Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, who had already been cast as Bella Swan, practicing a kissing scene on Hardwicke's bed.
"Rob and Kristen auditioned on my bed, the kissing scene, and Rob was so into it, he fell off the bed," Hardwicke shared, laughing. "I'm like, 'Dude, calm down.' I'm in there filming with my little video camera. And at the end, Kristen was like, 'It has to be Rob!'"
Hardwicke was concerned by the two stars' apparent attraction.
"I could tell they had a lot of chemistry," she said. "And I thought, 'Oh my god, Kristen was 17, I don't want to get in some illegal thing.' So I remember I told Rob, 'By the way, Kristen is 17. In our country, it's illegal for them to have sexual relations.' And he's like, 'Oh, OK, whatever.'"
The two stars weren't together when they first started filming the movie. In fact, the film's editor, Nancy Richardson, claims Stewart was dating someone else at the time. Pattinson and Stewart began dating in mid-2009 and broke up in 2013.
Stewart confirmed Hardwicke's story about her instant chemistry with Pattinson during a November 2021 profile for The New Yorker.
“It was so clear who worked," she said. "[He had an] intellectual approach that was combined with ‘I don’t give a f**k about this, but I’m going to make this sing.’ And I was, like, ‘Ugh, same.’”
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