
In the Twilight saga, the vampires are kept in line by the vampire government, known as the Volturi. Both respected and feared, these individuals are viewed as royalty, as they are centuries old and unimaginably powerful. Led by Aro (Michael Sheen), and counting the fearsome Jane (Dakota Fanning), a sweet-faced, innocent-looking vampire who can and does inflict pain merely by willing it, among its ranks, the Volturi makes its first appearance into the story with New Moon.
During a press conference at the film's press day, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Cameron Bright and Jamie Campbell Bower talked about being the new guys in this phenomenally successful franchise.
Q: Dakota, as such a fan of this series, what were the highlights of playing Jane?
Dakota: I think the highlight of playing Jane was getting to wear that costume and having the red contact lenses. I was really excited about that, and getting to play an evil character.
Q: Do you get to do more in Eclipse?
Dakota: It's about the same. I'm still not very much in the movie.
Q: What did you think when you saw yourself for the first time with the red lenses in?
Dakota: It's really scary. I think it makes anyone look automatically evil. It was really fun. You get used to them, after a while. You can see pretty good, but it's still kind of weird.
Q: Michael, did it take you a while to come up with your voice in the film, or was that an instant thought when you read the script?
Michael: No, it was from Stephenie in the book. She describes Aro as having a voice like feathers, so that made me think about what would it sound like, if someone had a voice like feathers. And then, as I was starting to play around with it, I reminded myself a little bit of the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine. And then, I was also thinking about characters from when I was a kid watching stuff that really freaked me out, and the Blue Meanie really freaked me out. So did the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I liked the idea of a character who, on the surface, appears to be very friendly and thinks of himself as just being a sentimental old fool, a romantic at heart, but then he wants to eat your eyes. That was where Aro came from.
Q: Now that you get to play a vampire rather than a werewolf, was it more satisfying?
Michael: The tailoring is so much better as a vampire. I've been observing vampires for some time now, and I finally got to give my own fang, although we don't have fangs, do we? But, no, it was great to be on the other side for a bit.
Q: Jamie, can you describe what the Volturi are?
Jamie: We are basically the vampire government. We're there to keep all the vampires in check. People keep describing us as evil. I wouldn't say we're evil necessarily. We're the government, and not everybody likes the government, which is fine. Without us, it would turn into complete vampire anarchy. And, we're there to keep the Cullens in check, in particular.
Michael: It's quite thrilling to have Dakota Fanning call you "master."
Q: Cameron, can you talk about your character and your relationship to Dakota?
Cameron: Me and Dakota are the henchmen, and Dakota is the most feared out of all the Volturi. She's the one with the worst power. We do what they say. For me, as Alec, I'm the only one that isn't quite afraid of Jane, but I still am. I'm not afraid to say what I want, where everybody else is always watching their words, as far the henchmen go. Jane just looks at them and they just shut up and don't say anything. We're brother and sister. We don't fight at all, or else I'd be in trouble.
Q: Jamie, how would you compare joining the Harry Potter phenomenon with the Twilight phenomenon?
Jamie: The Twilight phenomenon is relatively young cinematically, so there's still a lot of growth there to go and there's still a lot of connections to be made between cast and crew, whereas with Potter they've been going for 10 years now. It's a machine. You go in, you do your thing and then you go on. With this, there's a lot more finding out about everything and a lot more exploration to do, in general.
Q: What are each of your special powers? If you had a special power, in real life, what would you like it to be?
Cameron: Alec's special power is that he cuts off people's senses. And, the special power I'd want in the real world would be to have any special power I wanted.
Dakota: Jane's special power is that she can just look at someone and cause them pain. And, if I could have any power, it would be to read people's thoughts.
Jamie: Caius doesn't have a power. Take from that what you will. And, if I had a power in real life, it would probably be something like the power of flight. That would be cool, just to get from A to B much quicker than walking everywhere. It would be much faster.
Michael: Aro's power is to be able to read people's thoughts by touching them. And, in real life, I would like to have the power to always look like I'm three centimeters to the right of where I actually am. I'm doing it now. I actually do have that power.
Q: Is it challenging to play characters that are duplicitous, or is it fun to be intimidating?
Dakota: Yes, it is fun.
Michael: We had to tone Dakota down. She was too evil. We had to tone the volume down on the evil.
Dakota: Yeah. It was fun to get to play a feared character. It was something different than what I've done before. And also, she uses her power not for good, which was another thing that was interesting to me.
Q: Have you had to turn down any roles, or are you getting even more roles thanks to the Twilight films?
Jamie: I'll just take what I can get. It's nice to work. I don't have to turn down anything.
Cameron: My schedule definitely filled up with the stuff for this movie, like the conventions. I went to Australia and Rome, and Jamie went to Rome, and a couple other people went to Australia and Chicago. To me, that's amazing. It's great fun. It gets me out of school.
Jamie: Every day, it's an audition. Hire me.
Q: Now that you're a part of the Twilight phenomenon, how has that been for you? Were you obsessed with anything when you were growing up, as much as fans are obsessed with this?
Michael: I haven't really experienced much of the Twilight fan stuff yet. I did go into a store in L.A. to buy a pair of jeans, and I went into the little cubicle to try my jeans on. It's always quite a nerve-wracking time when I come out of the cubicle to look in the mirror, and I like that to be a private moment. As I came out, there was a woman who was shaking, going "You're Aro, aren't you?!" And, I just hid in my cubicle again.
That's really been my only experience with that. Apart from also going into my daughter's bedroom and seeing that she's just got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere, and seeing my own little picture, which I think she did out of pity.
Cameron: I've never been as obsessed as some of the people I've seen with this movie. I like shoes. Other than that, there's nothing really.
Dakota: I'm obsessed with baby names that people name their children. I know a lot of people's baby names. I just love names, in general. I've been planning my children's names since I was four. I have lists of girls and boys, and I have them from all different ages. It's really fun.
Michael: I really like inappropriately named animals. My daughter is brilliant at naming things. She's got a cat called Clive. I love that. And, a mouse called Bob.
Q: Dakota, being someone with so much experience, do you get starstruck at all?
Dakota: Especially going into this movie, with a cast that already knew each other really well because they'd already done a movie together, you're always the new kid coming in. But, they were just so nice and so welcoming, and just a really great cast, so it was hard to be starstruck, even though you're such big fans of them and excited to meet them. They're just so nice and we became friends pretty quick.
Q: When you signed on, did you know about all the merchandise you'd be involved with, like figures, posters, toys and all that stuff?
Cameron: It was funny because, when I showed up for New Moon, we did the photo session and they were like, "Okay, we just want profile shots for the doll," and I was like, "Wait a minute! They're making a doll of me?" For me at least, one of the goals of being an actor is to have an action figure with the pull string that says one of your lines.
It's just one of those weird things that I think would be hilarious to have on my bed stand and just have people walk into my room and go, "Seriously, you've got a doll of yourself?" It's pretty crazy. We don't have Hot Topic back home, but we have Spencers, and you walk in there and there's all this stuff everywhere.
Michael: I lose days with just my Lucian figure and my Aro figure, fighting. They have their tea parties together. They like to fight, and then they come back. I'm losing jobs because of it. And then, Dakota's Dreamer doll comes over and we have a little chat, and then we fight.
Q: Dakota, you were the homecoming princess at your high school. How do you balance your school life with acting?
Dakota: I thought it was really important to have the high school experience. It was something that I wanted. I think it's really great to have that balance of a completely normal life and then a completely abnormal life. I really didn't see a reason why I wouldn't be able to do both, and I was lucky that I was able to go to a school that lets me leave. I don't know if there's a "how-to" guide, as to how I balance it. It's just happened, and I have really great friends and a great family, so it's the best of both.
Q: You worked with Kristen again in The Runaways. Having worked together already, was it a little bit easier going into that with her, after New Moon?
Dakota: Yeah, it was really great making The Runaways with her, after New Moon. We became really good friends and were really close, throughout all the experiences we've had this year. I couldn't ask for a better person to do three movies in a row with than her. It was really good to know each other, so we weren't complete strangers when doing The Runaways.
Q: Jamie, with the last two Potter movies being quite different from each other, did you notice a difference working on Part 1 and Part 2?
Jamie: They're still working on it. They're shooting simultaneously because they've obviously got lots of time scheduled and they have to do both, side by side. But, I haven't noticed a difference.
Q: What is your character in Harry Potter?
Jamie: Gellert Grindelwald. He's an old friend of Dumbledore's, who's a possible lover.
Q: How much is he in?
Jamie: At the moment, I've only worked on it for about a week. I think I've got another week and a bit to go.
Q: Is there more singing in your future?
Jamie: I play in a band, so there's more music coming out.
Q: Will you be doing anything on stage?
Jamie: Not at the moment. Maybe one day.
(aun no hay traduccion)