Trivia / The Twilight Saga

• Actor-Inspired Element: Kristen Stewart suggested the song used in the prom scene ("Flightless Bird, American Mouth" by Iron & Wine).
• Adaptation Overdosed: The first novel has had several adaptations and retellings (including some written by Stephenie Meyer herself). Twilight was adapted into a film in 2008 and then into a two-part graphic novel in 2010 and 2011. Meyer began work on Midnight Sun, a retelling of the first book from Edward's perspective, which was eventually published in 2020; prior to that she wrote and published Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, which is a gender-flipped retelling of the first book, in 2015. Then there's the unofficial adaptations: Fifty Shades of Grey started out as a Twilight fanfiction before being published as an original work in 2011 (those familiar with both stories will be able to see the remaining similarities) and it got both a film adaptation and a retelling from another character's POV in 2015. And there's the 2010 film Vampires Suck, which parodies the first installment (along with New Moon). In March 2024, Lionsgate has also announced the animated series based on the book series is in the work.
• Author's Saving Throw: One of the reasons Stephenie Meyer wrote Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined was to try and make the point that Bella wasn't seemingly weak and passive because she was a girl, but because she was a human surrounded by supernaturals.
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Robert Pattinson is infamous in his dislike of his character and the series, but also made it known that besides the money, he stuck around so he could make out with Kristen Stewart.
  • Justin Chon also didn't have a high opinion of the series, but otherwise took the role of Eric Yorkie upon recognizing that his casting was an instance of Ability over Appearance and his presence would provide what he felt was much needed Asian-American representation.
• Baby Name Trend Starter: Jacob and Isabella became popular baby names after the success of the series. Edward wasn't as popular, as it's more old-fashioned, but it did rise in popularity. After the final book the name Renesmee became a popular baby girl name too.
• Based on a Dream: A dream of a sparkling vampire lying in a field of flowers, apparently.
• Breakthrough Hit: The first book was this for Stephenie Meyer; her debut novel quickly became a bestseller upon its publication in 2005, zooming to fifth place on The New York Times Bestseller List within a month (eventually reaching first place). Its success led to the Twilight franchise becoming a worldwide phenomenon and kickstarted Meyer's career as both a writer and producer.
• California Doubling:
  • The majority of the first film was shot in Portland, Oregon, standing in for Forks, Washington where the story is set. From the second film onwards, British Colombia and Vancouver, Canada, stood in for Washington.
  • In the adaptation of New Moon, the city of Montepulciano, Italy, stood in for Volterra (which is a real city).
  • For Breaking Dawn Part 1, many exterior scenes were shot in Canada, while many interior scenes were shot in Baton Rogue, Louisiana. The scenes set in Rio de Janeiro were filmed on-location, though.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Jackson Rathbone auditioned for Edward Cullen before being cast as Jasper.
• The Cast Showoff: Robert Pattinson plays the piano in the "Bella's Lullaby" scene.
• Completely Different Title:
  • The Swedish titles for the books have nothing to do with time:
    • Twilight = Om jag kunde drömma = If I could dream
    • New Moon = När jag hör din röst = When I hear your voice
    • Eclipse = Ljudet av ditt hjärta = The sound of your heart
    • Breaking Dawn = Så länge vi båda andas = As long as we both breathe
  • The Norwegian title for Twilight is "Evighetens kyss" - the kiss of eternity. The rest of the titles are translated literally.
  • The German titles go along the lines of "Bis(s) zum Morgengrauen", which is a pun where one S would mean "till dawn" and two S's would mean "Bite till dawn". The sequels continue the trend with "(Bite) till dusk/noon/etc."
  • Similar to the Swedish titles, the French titles also have nothing to do with time:
    • Twilight —> Fascination (Fascination)
    • New Moon —> Tentation (Temptation)
    • Eclipse —> Hésitation (Hesitation)
    • Breaking Dawn —> Révélation (Revelation)
• Creator Backlash:
  • Robert Pattinson has openly admitted that he despises Twilight and practically bashes it whenever his role as Edward comes up. He even called Stephenie Meyer "mad" and said that she has no real talent and just writes down her erotic fantasies for the whole world to see. He has also specifically noted that his own character is a stalker-ish creep and he acts the way he does to portray the character as such. Don't believe us?
  • To a much lesser extent, Kristen Stewart admits that she doesn't really like Twilight either and felt it nearly ruined her potential as an actress, but it's also because in general, she doesn't enjoy being famous. However, she doesn't despise it as much as Pattinson does.
  • Completing the trifecta, Taylor Lautner had a few choice words when he found out about imprinting.
  • In a 2011 interview with The AV Club, Anna Kendrick referred to her character Jessica as "an idiot." However, she's admitted in other interviews that she didn't hate the experience, since it gave her the financial freedom to work on other, lesser-known projects, and the movies were ridiculous enough to be kind of fun. She also stated in 2020 that she didn't have the best time working on the first film, due to the weather being "so cold and miserable."
    Kendrick on Twitter in 2018: Holy shit. I just remembered I was in Twilight.
  • Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen's actor) said in an interview that he didn't like the script for the first movie and that various things about it didn't make sense, mainly the fact that Stephenie Meyer's vampires sparkled.
  • For a time, not even Stephenie Meyer herself liked the series anymore. She claimed to be "so over" Twilight, not the least because of it overshadowing her later works, and even stated that if she ever returned to the series, it would only be to post "three paragraphs on [her] blog saying which of the characters died." However, she later softened this stance, as she completed and published Midnight Sun in 2020 and announced she had ideas for future books in the series.
  • Tyson Houseman (who played Quil Ateara) said in a 2015 interview that he and other actors on-set considered the portrayal of the Quileute as problematic due to equating them with mythical beings and the heavy Artistic License taken with the real tribe's myths and traditions, although he also stated that at least the films depicted "contemporary Native characters as opposed to fake historic relics of a romanticized early American frontier."
• Creator Breakdown: Stephenie Meyer announced that she had ceased work on the fifth novel of the series (a retelling of the first novel from Edward's perspective) after someone she knew leaked the first 13 chapters online: "If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working..." It was eventually completed and released in August 2020.
• The Danza: Michael Welch as Mike Newton.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Kristen Stewart was seventeen and turned eighteen while shooting the first film, making her an aversion. However, she was still playing a high school student for the next two films and now in her twenties.
  • Robert Pattinson was nearly twenty-two when he first played Edward Cullen, who is eternally seventeen. That said, because Edward is actually a century old, the filmmakers thought it worked having a slightly older actor.
  • This applies to some of Bella's high school friends; Anna Kendrick was twenty-two when she first played Jessica, while Michael Welch was twenty when he was cast as Mike. Initially averted with Christian Serratos as Angela, as she was seventeen during the filming of Twilight (she had turned eighteen by the time the first movie was released).
  • Leah Clearwater is supposed to be around nineteen years old when she first appears in Eclipse, while Julia Jones was twenty-eight years old during filming.
• Defictionalization: Nordstrom and Torrid have massive tie-ins with New Moon, mainly replicating Bella's clothes (apparently there were a lot of requests after the first movie and they just said "screw it, we're selling it ourselves"), which by happy coincidence are in style.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Averted by Kristen Stewart in regards to her hair; she wore hair pieces specifically to save time. She did, however, wear brown contact lenses to more closely match Bella's description from the books (Bella has "chocolate brown" eyes, while Kristen's eyes are green).
  • Peter Facinelli bleached his dark hair blond to play Carlisle.
  • Nikki Reed (Rosalie) bleached hers too for the first film. But because it was such a hassle, she wore wigs for the remaining films.
  • Ashley Greene (Alice) did the opposite - first wearing a wig for Twilight. She cut it for New Moon to help it fit under the wig better but then went without them for the remaining films.
  • Taylor Lautner nearly got recast as Jacob between the first and second movies, due to producers wanting a more muscular actor. So he hit the gym and gained several pounds of muscle - and was allowed to keep his role. Otherwise averted with his hair - as he just wore a wig in the first two films when Jacob has long hair.
• Enforced Method Acting: When Carlisle bites Edward, he whispers in Edward's ear. The in-character "I'm sorry" failed to get the right terrified reaction, as did the equally in-character "My son", so he whispered "You're sexy".
• Fake American:
  • In the film series Edward is American but his actor, Robert Pattinson, is British.
  • In the film adaptation of Eclipse, Lucy, a resident of northern Texas, is played by Canadian actress Kirsten Prout.
• Fake Brit: Carlisle Cullen (British) is played by Peter Facinelli (American) in the movies. But given that he's probably lived in America for decades, if not centuries, it's plausible that he'd lose his accent.
• Follow the Leader:
  • After Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being split into two films, this was the first franchise to follow that formula. The Hunger Games followed suit with the Mockingjay film, as did The Hobbit (though not long after, that one was split into three parts).
  • Loads of other Young Adult books were put up for adaptation after Twilight's success - such as Beastly, Beautiful Creatures, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, Divergent, Vampire Academy, Warm Bodies etc.
• Genre Popularizer: The books caused an explosion of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy stories for teens in the late 2000s. It also led to older works in this genre and demographic being rediscovered and becoming popular again.
• Hypothetical Casting: Stephenie Meyer's choice for Bella Swann was Emily Browning. Meyer also said she pictured Henry Cavill when writing Edward Cullen, but by the time the movies were made, he was considered too old for the role.
• I Am Not Spock: After the franchise's heyday, Taylor Lautner is still heavily associated with Jacob. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson shook this off through consistently good work in other roles, but Taylor's only high profile role since then has been in Scream Queens (2015) (which had plenty of Adam Westing to his role as Jacob).
• Lying Creator:
  • "Vampires can't have children", our collective ass. Meyer apparently narrowly construes the word "to have" as meaning "to bear".
  • And her "genuine" Quileute folklore that isn't so genuine.
• Milestone Celebration: Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, a Gender Flipped retelling of Twilight, was released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book itself.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Bryce Dallas Howard replaces Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria in the third movie. Funnily enough she turned the role down for the first film, finding the part too small. With Victoria's role being bigger in Eclipse she was happy to sign back on.
  • Narrowly averted when Taylor Lautner almost lost his role as Jacob Black in New Moon. The director of New Moon, Chris Weiss, was considering recasting Jacob, because he decided he wanted a taller and more muscular actor to play him (the studio producers were ''openly negotiating'' with other actors before the end of filming the first movie). Upon hearing this, Lautner immediately hit the gym and apparently never left. He gained an insane 35 pounds of muscle to keep his role in the series.
• Playing Against Type: Jane is a decided departure from the innocent little girl character type that Dakota Fanning is known for playing.
• Production Posse: Nikki Reed had worked previously with Catherine Hardwicke on Thirteen (2003) and Lords of Dogtown.
• Promoted Fangirl: Christina Perri, a huge fan of the series, was invited to a screening to submit a song for Breaking Dawn's soundtrack. She ended up with the successful single "A Thousand Years" (which plays during Edward and Bella's wedding in Part 1 and gets reprised at the end of Part 2).
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Kristen Stewart had to wear a wig for Eclipse as she'd cut her hair for The Runaways and didn't have time to grow it back to match Bella's established hair length.
• The Red Stapler: There were official replicas produced of Bella's wedding dress and engagement ring that you can buy.
• Romance on the Set: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart dated for a while, and their relationship ended very publicly when Kristen was found to have had an affair with director Rupert Sanders while filming Snow White & the Huntsman.
• Sequel Gap: Midnight Sun, a Perspective Flip of the first novel told from Edward's POV, was released in August 2020, twelve years after the release of Breaking Dawn (book four). It would've been released years earlier, but Stephenie Meyer was reluctant to work on it after a Content Leak.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Michael Sheen ended up joining the cast partially because his daughter was a fan of the series.
• Spared by the Cut: Stephenie Meyer wrote a sequel to Twilight where Laurent's Heel–Face Turn sticks, and he and his lover Irina survive until the end. Meyer disliked the finished book (feeling that the Time Skip was a mistake) and decided to spread the plot developments of the original sequel across three books instead of one. In those books, both Laurent and Irina die.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Kristen Stewart had been getting plenty of buzz for her indie work beforehand, but this turned her into a household name.
  • Robert Pattinson likewise was known for the fourth Harry Potter film but became instantly famous because of this.
  • And starting from the second film, Taylor Lautner was also rocketed to fame.
• Throw It In!:
  • Rosalie is wearing gloves in the first movie when Bella comes for dinner, because she cut her hands breaking the bowl on the first take.
  • Emmett has shorter hair than in the book because Kellan Lutz had to cut it for Generation Kill and couldn't grow it out in time.
  • Anna Kendrick revealed in her memoir that Jessica's rambling (yet surprisingly good) analysis of the zombie apocalypse genre was improvised.
• Tourist Bump: The town of Forks, Washington has seen a 600% increase in tourism in the last few years, nearly all of it due to it being the main setting of the series. There have even been a pair of documentaries made (Twilight in Forks and Destination Forks) about how the town has been affected by this. The Twilight tourism has also rubbed off on neighboring towns, most notably La Push (home of Jacob Black and the Quileute tribe) and Port Angeles (the main town on the Olympic Peninsula, and where several scenes from the book took place).
• Trend Killer: The film adaptation of Twilight (2008) and The Hunger Games (2012) killed the child-led blockbuster franchises that Harry Potter had popularized. Young adult novels featuring child protagonists either aged up their protagonists (eg, The Giver, Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Seventh Son (2015)) or used teenage/adult protagonists instead.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to this article, Executive Meddling at Paramount was originally planning to turn Twilight into a far more action-heavy movie — something of a high school-set version of Underworld — in order to bring in more male viewers. Bella was made into a far more active character (she was written as a track star) who fought back against the vampires, and gets turned into one herself in the first movie. Anyone Can Die was in full effect, with Bella's dad dying by the end of the movie. A Korean FBI vampire hunter was introduced as an antagonist, and one scene had vampires picking off members of a SWAT team sent into a forest after them, while Edward was a Blade-type vampire. An Executive Veto from Stephenie Meyer put the kibosh on this, and the resulting adaptation by Summit was made far more faithful to the novel.
  • Bella's original reason for moving to Forks was that her new stepfather was her school principal, and she was specifically uncomfortable living with a relatively strange man. Meyer was told to change this detail because her publisher felt it implied that Bella was afraid of sexual abuse.
  • Twilight was originally only going to have one sequel called Forever Dawn. The basic storyline is the same as what would become the fourth book, Breaking Dawn. Edward and Bella get married, she gets pregnant on the honeymoon, and Bella has to be turned into a vampire to survive the birth of their daughter Renesmee. Jacob isn't present at the birth, but he imprints on Renesmee a few weeks later. The biggest change is that the love triangle of Bella, Edward, and Jacob never develops because the events of New Moon and Eclipse never happen. In short, Edward never leaves and Bella and Jacob don't become close. The lack of the two middle books also leaves Victoria and Laurent alive. Laurent does a Heel–Face Turn and Victoria gets one of her minions to tell the Volturi about Renesmee. Victoria is later the only one killed at the final standoff, courtesy of the mostly-unnamed werewolves. The ending is still pretty much the same Happily Ever After as it is in the final version.
  • Jennifer Lawrence auditioned for the role of Bella. Yes, really. Michelle Trachtenberg was reportedly the first choice. Emily Browning and Lily Collins were also considered.
  • The crew for Breaking Dawn was originally going to use this to show Renesmee.
  • Peter Facinelli originally wasn't cast as Carlisle but after the original actor dropped out, Catherine Hardwicke offered the part to him.
  • Catherine Hardwicke wanted to diversify the vampire characters, and specifically requested that Alice be played by a Japanese actress. Stephenie Meyer resisted the idea, though Hardwicke was eventually able to get her to agree to the casting of Edi Gathegi as Laurent.
  • Vanessa Hudgens auditioned for the role of Leah Clearwater.
  • Henry Cavill was Meyer's personal choice to play Edward and suggested him to the studio. However, they thought he looked too old so no formal outreach was ever made.
  • Charlie Hunnam was originally considered for Dr Carlisle Cullen.
  • A soundtrack example. My Chemical Romance was approached by both Stephenie Meyer and their label to heavily contribute to the soundtrack for the films, including a single that would be used for the end of the first movie, due to the fact that she had been substantially influenced by their music during the writing of the series. The band hated Twilight so much that they said it made vampires out to resemble "the new Jonas Brothers" and wrote the song "Vampire Money" out of spite. "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse took the spot where their single at the end of the film was supposed to be, but there could’ve been a soundtrack done largely in part by a band that arguably dominated the angsty vampire obsessed teen demographic of that decade.
  • Stephenie Meyer stated she originally intended for the Volturi to live in a made-up city called Volturin; when she checked a map of Italy however, by eerie coincidence she found that there was a real city called Volterra located where she'd intended to place Volturin and decided to incorporate this into the story.
  • Lucy Hale auditioned for the series twice: first for Alice and second for Jane.
  • Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first film, was asked to return and direct New Moon, but she ultimately declined, later stating it was because she felt the studio was trying to rush production. She added that she didn't mind as she liked Twilight the best out of all the books, so she'd already gotten to adapt her favorite installment.
  • Had Hardwicke not directed the movie, it's very likely someone else would have played Rosalie as Nikki Reed only signed on due to Hardwicke directing.
• Working Title: Originally, the first book was going to be called Forks until Meyer’s agent told her to come up with something more atmospheric.
• Write What You Know: Stephenie Meyer claims she did this unintentionally with the Cullens: a tight-knit family where the parents had been married for "110 years", with six "children" (after Bella joins), half of them male, the other half female.

---