‘Twilight’: 1 Cast Member Recalls Getting Shocked at ‘Six in the Morning’
No matter how you feel about Twilight, a lot of effort went into making the popular films. Bringing mythical characters to life was no easy feat for the cast and crew. This was especially true in the first movie of the series. As it wasn’t expected to perform the way it did, Twilight was made on a very modest budget.
Because there wasn’t enough money for tons of CGI, the vampires’ looks were mostly created manually. Undergoing intense hair and makeup multiple times a day was pretty par for the course for some of the Twilight cast members. In fact, many of the actors had to dye their natural hair to match the appearance of their characters.
Getting the makeup right for the ‘Twilight’ vampires was challenging
Makeup was especially challenging to figure out. The vampires did lots of tests to make sure they were the perfect shade of alabaster. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Peter Facinelli, who was cast as Carlisle Cullen, revealed that his role as the benevolent patriarch of the Cullen family required a week’s worth of makeup tests.
“It took a little bit to figure out,” the Twilight cast member shared about the arduous process. “I did a week of makeup tests because they wanted to have their own tone and they wanted to make sure that the skin wasn’t too ridiculously Marcel Marceau, but pale enough where you could buy that this person would be a vampire.”
Peter Facinelli recalls feeling the occasional electric shock during his morning makeup routine
Continuing on, Facinelli recalled one of the most uncomfortable parts of the process. Apparently, the Twilight cast experienced occasional electric shocks whilst they were getting their makeup done. “I remember one product they used was this battery-charged airbrush makeup thing,” he shared. “It’s an ionizer, so if the makeup person touched you while they were using it, it would give a little shock. That was always fun at six in the morning.”
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Another uncomfortable part of the hair and makeup process involved the actors putting in contacts that gave the vampires their bizarre eye colors. “We had to get in, put the contact lenses in, which for some were harder than others,” Facinelli shared of his Twilight castmates.
Some of the ‘Twilight’ members had to adjust to the creepy contacts
The aforementioned contacts were all hand-painted in order to achieve a unique hue. Naturally, some of the cast members had never worn contacts before, so they had to have someone from the crew help them out. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dakota Fanning (who plays Jane Volturi) described her experience sporting the accessories.
“I’ve never worn anything in my eyes before, so it was definitely a feeling I’d never experienced,” Fanning shared. “But they have someone to put them in and take them out. You can kind of feel them. But you get used to it after a while.” Fanning also shared the contacts helped her to embody her evil Twilight character.
“I think you automatically have kind of a creepy look to you no matter what you’re doing or saying, so it definitely helps,” Fanning continued. Considering Fanning was able to believably play a sociopathic vampire, we’re sure Twilight fans will agree with her.
