20 Behind-the-Scenes Facts From The “Twilight” Saga, Including Robert Pattinson’s Surprising On-Set Injury

Whether you’re Team Edward or Team Jacob, it’s time to relive your Twilight fandom all over again.

The film series — which is based on Stephenie Meyer’s books of the same name — are all now available to stream on Netflix. Twilight first premiered in 2008, followed by The Twilight Saga: New Moon in 2009 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in 2010. The fourth and final book was split into two movies, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 in 2011 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 in 2012.

The movies center around the intense — and sometimes dangerous — love story between a teenage girl, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), and a century-old vampire, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who looks 17. Their relationship faces many challenges, from rival vampires and werewolves to Bella wanting to become immortal herself.

In addition to Stewart and Pattinson, the Twilight saga’s star-studded cast included Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black, Nikki Reed as Rosalie Cullen, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Cullen, Ashley Greene as Alice Cullen, Kellan Lutz as Emmett Cullen, Peter Facinelli as Carlisle Cullen and Elizabeth Reaser as Esme Cullen, among many others.

From on-set accidents to how Lautner maintained his abs, here are 20 behind-the-scenes facts you probably didn’t know about the Twilight saga.

Several actors were considered for Edward

Pattinson wasn’t always the frontrunner to play Edward Cullen. Before his casting, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke also considered Shiloh Fernandez, Ben Barnes and Rathbone, who ultimately played Jasper Cullen.

“I did have a screen test and signed contracts and all that,” Fernandez told Interview in 2010. “Did I want the part? I did. But I don’t think I was right or ready for it.”

Related: 8 Actors You Totally Forgot Were in ‘Twilight’: Dakota Fanning, Anna Kendrick and More

As for Meyer’s first choice, she always imagined Henry Cavill as her Edward, per a blog post written by the author in 2007.

“I think I was [Meyer’s] first choice. That’s the rumor I heard. She wanted me to play [Edward], but it wasn’t up to her,” Cavill said on The Graham Norton Show in 2018.

A number of actresses were considered for Bella

Like Pattinson, Stewart wasn’t the only actress in the running to play Bella Swan. In 2007, Meyer’s frontrunner was Emily Browning.

Actress Lily Collins auditioned for Twilight, she told Mandatory in 2013. Michelle Trachtenberg and Jennifer Lawrence also tried out for the part.

“I didn’t really know what it was,” Lawrence said on a 2018 episode of The Howard Stern Show of her Twilight audition. “You just get like five pages [at the audition] and they’re like, ‘Act, monkey.’ And when it came out I was like, ‘Hot damn. Whoa!’ “

Tyler Posey was considered for the part of Jacob

Tyler Posey, meanwhile, was Meyer’s first choice for Jacob, and he was in the running up until the final decision was made.

“I was up against Taylor Lautner, it was between he and I for Jacob in Twilight,” Posey said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2023. “It would’ve been huge, but I was really young. I was like 16. I wasn’t ready for that type of attention that he got.”

Taylor Lautner was almost recast in ‘New Moon’

After starring in Twilight, Lautner nearly didn’t come back for New Moon. Production originally planned to cast another actor to play Jacob in the remaining four films.

“My character in the first book is supposed to be a 16-year-old little scrawny boy, and in the middle of New Moon, he transforms into this 25-year-old looking built, muscular man,” Lautner explained on a 2023 episode of Call Her Daddy.

“They were going to cast a mid-20s guy to carry on and be Jacob for the rest of the franchise. I had to fight for my role back,” he continued.

Taylor Lautner consumed more than 3,200 calories a day for ‘New Moon’

After Twilight wrapped shooting, Lautner hit the gym and consumed over 3,200 calories a day to go from a lean teen to a hunky werewolf in New Moon.

“I knew I had to get to work right away. There could be no waiting involved. The day I finished Twilight, I came home and started bulking up,” he told Interview magazine in 2009. “For New Moon, I’m 30 pounds heavier than I was in Twilight.”

Lautner continued, “I was in the gym five days a week, two hours a day. The hardest thing for me was the eating. At one point, I had to shove as much food in my body as possible to pack on calories.”

Renesmee was supposed to be played by an animatronic doll in ‘Breaking Dawn — Part 2’

In Breaking Dawn, production attempted to use an animatronic doll for the scenes that involved Bella Swan and Edward Cullen’s daughter, Renesmee.

The cast collectively called it “Chuckesmee” due to its resemblance to Chucky. The doll was ultimately cut from the scenes and replaced with CGI.

“[It was] one of the most grotesque animatronic babies ever to not be seen on film,” producer Wyck Godfrey said in a behind-the-scenes clip from Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga, per E! Online.

‘New Moon’ director Chris Weitz wanted Kristen Stewart to put weights in her pockets for a drowning scene

While filming Bella Swan’s drowning scene in New Moon, director Chris Weitz suggested that Stewart get in the pool with weights in her pockets. He assumed this would make it easier for her to appear as if she were floating to the bottom of the ocean.

Stewart was hesitant, so Weitz tried it out for himself.

“I decided to go down there in a wetsuit, weighted down, and I started to panic,” he told Rolling Stone in 2009. “I thought, ‘Holy crap, this isn’t fun at all!’ “

Weitz continued, “Kristen had a cold that day, so that was the last thing I was going to do — put someone with a cold at the bottom of a 12-foot pool with weights in their pockets. That didn’t seem like a wise move.”

‘Breaking Dawn — Part 1’ was originally rated R

Breaking Dawn — Part 1 is rated PG-13, but that wasn’t always the case. The film’s first cut earned an R rating due to Edward and Bella’s racy consummation scene, which was ultimately tweaked in the editing room.

“There was a bit too much butt crack, I think,” Pattinson said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2011. “That was one thing I know they cut out. They didn’t cut the shot, they just cut the crack out. They just painted over it.”

Several cast members wore wigs while filming the franchise

Reed, Pattinson and Stewart were among the actors who wore wigs while filming the Twilight saga.

Reed, whose character Rosalie Cullen had blonde hair, dyed her natural locks for Twilight, but opted for a wig in the subsequent four films.

“My hair fell out,” she told MTV. “It took 36 hours initially to make me blonde, and every other day, I was bleaching my head and my skin.”

Meanwhile, Stewart wore a wig in Eclipse after cutting her hair to play Joan Jett in The Runaways (2010), she told MTV News. Pattinson had to don faux locks for Breaking Dawn — Part 2 reshoots after he shaved his head, he told fans during 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, per Digital Spy.

Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson did their chemistry test in ‘Twilight’ director Catherine Hardwicke’s bed

Stewart was already cast as Bella Swan when she and Pattinson did their chemistry test, which took place in Twilight director Hardwicke’s bedroom.

“[They] auditioned on my bed,” Hardwicke recalled during an interview on The Big Hit Show podcast in 2022. “Rob was so into [the kissing scene] he fell off the bed. I’m like, ‘Dude, calm down.’ And I’m in there filming with my little video camera.”

She continued, “And at the end, Kristen was like, ‘It has to be Rob.’ But I could tell they had a lot of chemistry.”

Actors who played the wolf pack in ‘New Moon’ had to have Native American ancestry

In New Moon, the wolf pack belongs to the Quileute tribe based in La Push, Wash. When casting the band of brotherly shape-shifters, Weitz insisted on authenticity and required everyone who auditioned to provide documentation of their Native American heritage.

Chaske Spencer, Alex Meraz, Kiowa Gordon and Bronson Pelletier ultimately joined the cast.

Kellan Lutz accidentally punched Jackson Rathbone while filming ‘Eclipse’

Lutz accidentally landed a real punch while rehearsing an Eclipse fight scene with Rathbone.

“We were out in mud, so it was really slick. [Kellan] punched too low, and I didn’t duck low enough. He caught me right in the temple,” Rathbone told MTV. “I didn’t fall, but I was kind of out of it for the next couple takes.”

“[My agent] was like, ‘We should get him checked out,’ ” he continued. “Apparently, I wasn’t speaking in full sentences, and I had a mild concussion. So they sent me to the hospital to get my brain checked out.”

Kristen Stewart used a butt pad while filming ‘Twilight’

To avoid injury, Stewart used a butt pad when filming the scene in Twilight where Bella slips on a patch of ice outside of her home.

“I stuffed, like, a little pad in the back of my jeans [and that was it],” she told MTV in 2008. “It wasn’t hard to fall on my butt. I’ve done it before.”

Several cast members wore colored contact lenses

To fully transform into vampires, the cast of the Twilight saga had to wear colored contact lenses — and it was no walk in the park.

“They just kill you. [They give you] dead face,” Stewart told MTV, per Digital Spy. “The yellow ones sort of limit your vision even more.”

As a member of the Volturi, actor Michael Sheen, who played Aro, had to wear red lenses.

“[They] are like half the size of golf balls because they have to cover the entire eye,” he told Vulture in 2012. “Just to put them in, you have to do them in two parts: They lift the upper eyelid and put the first part in, then lift the bottom of my eyelid and put the other part in.”

Sheen continued, “It really is like torture. You lose a lot of your peripheral vision, and your eyes are constantly trying to focus, so it gives you a headache after a while.”

Robert Pattinson didn’t have a driver’s license before filming ‘Twilight’

Pattinson, who was born and raised in the U.K., didn’t have a driver’s license before filming Twilight — in which his character is often seen behind the wheel.

According to The Oregonian, the actor took a crash course in driving and obtained his license in the Beaver State.

Stephenie Meyer didn’t want the vampires to have fangs

During an interview on The Big Hit Show podcast in 2022, Summit Entertainment’s then-head of production Erik Feig revealed that Meyer was adamant that her vampires didn’t have fangs.

“The negotiated language says, ‘No actor playing a vampire will have canine incisors longer than those found in the average human being,’ ” he recalled. “I love that line.”

Robert Pattinson almost tore a muscle on the first day of filming ‘Twilight’

Pattinson nearly injured himself in the early days of filming Twilight.

“We were doing the fight scene at the end of the first one, and I tore my glute — well, almost tore it, basically in my second shot of the whole movie, of the whole series,” he told MTV in 2012. “[They] had to get a physiotherapist to come in and massage my butt cheek for the rest of the day.”

Carolina Herrera designed Bella’s wedding dress

Production tapped Carolina Herrera — a longtime Twilight fan — to design Bella Swan’s wedding dress for Breaking Dawn – Part 1.

The design, a crepe satin and French Chantilly lace gown, took six months and four seamstresses to make. It featured 152 covered buttons along the back — a detail Bella mentions in the book’s description of the gown — along with an illusion lace appliqué and train.

“In the initial fitting when Kristen put the dress on and looked in the mirror, she was very moved,” Herrera told Vogue in 2011. “In that moment, she was not an actress or a character in a film, she was a bride, and a happy one at that.”

Pattinson claimed that Edward and Bella’s minister was legally ordained

In a 2011 press conference in Sweden, Pattinson claimed that a “real priest” married Edward and Bella in Breaking Dawn – Part 1.

“Essentially me and Kristen are married. We did the exact same thing as a wedding,” he said. “We just didn’t have the civil union. It’s not by law, but in the eyes of the church, we’re actually married.”

Actor Andy Rukes played Minister Weber in the movie, but he has never confirmed if he was legally ordained at the time of filming.

Robert Pattinson crashed a boat while filming ‘Breaking Dawn — Part 1’

In a behind-the-scenes interview for Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Pattinson revealed that he crashed a boat while filming with Stewart in Brazil.

“I didn’t really learn how to drive it. I went for a lesson and crashed the practice boat, and then I went to Brazil and crashed the Brazilian boat too,” he said. “I am definitely not nautical, but it was fun.”

Read the original article on People