‘Twilight’ Director Says 1 Iconic Scene Was ‘The Craziest Thing to Do’
Compared to the other filmmakers who directed the Twilight movies, Catherine Hardwicke had a particularly modest budget. Still, Hardwicke was able to make something truly unique with the $37 million she was given. Despite having a distinctly indie feel, or perhaps because of it, Twilight has some truly distinctive and especially memorable scenes.
One scene that is undoubtedly a standout in Twilight is the iconic baseball scene. Fans will recall watching the vampiric Cullen family move at the speed of light to engage in a friendly game of “America’s favorite pastime.” The scene is fun, dynamic, unique, and truly interesting to behold. But it was actually a bit of a nightmare to film.
‘Twilight’ director, Catherine Hardwicke, calls the baseball scene ‘crazy’
Hardwicke knew going into filming the baseball scene that it would be a challenge to shoot. Still, she was determined to bring the scene to life in a way that would enchant viewers. In an interview with Insider, the Twilight director got candid about her thought process when conceptualizing the scene.
“I did think it was about the craziest thing to do, to get to make a vampire baseball sequence,” Hardwicke revealed. “So I was like, ‘We’ve just got to make this as amazing as we can.'” Though the director succeeded in making the Twilight baseball scene an amazing one, shooting the scene came with a fair amount of challenges.
The cast and crew struggled with bad weather and financial limitations
Weather and financial limitations were two of Hardwicke’s biggest problems when filming the memorable Twilight scene. The baseball sequence was filmed in Portland, Oregon. And while the location was a gorgeous and magical one, it was particularly wet and rainy.
“We were filming in the winter because that’s when you have the most overcast,” Hardwicke recalled. “We couldn’t have bright sun because then the vampires would have to sparkle. We didn’t want them to be sparkling all the time, we couldn’t afford that. CGI sparkling cost a lot of money.”
Continuing on, the Twilight director recalled how the constant downpour of rain made her job that much harder. “The weather did not cooperate,” Hardwicke remembered. “And you can’t have pouring rain [because of] all the makeup drips; the hair. They just don’t look like the cool vampires in the pouring rain.”
How the bad weather actually helped the ‘Twilight’ cast to bond
Clearly the pouring rain and blistering cold were far from ideal. However, the cold weather did have one positive effect. It actually helped some members of the Twilight cast to connect to each other pretty easily. In the aforementioned interview, Nikkie Reed (who portrayed Rosalie Hale) recalled feeling especially close to her castmates while filming the baseball scene.
“It was super chilly and we became this little family very quickly,” Reed recalled. Hardwicke was quick to echo the cast member’s sentiments. “That was a really good bonding experience for all the vampires,” she declared. The baseball scene may have been very arduous to film, but we’re sure Twilight fans appreciate the dedication that the cast and crew put in to make it memorable.
