more you’re able to feel like you can go deeper with the character and the more things come out you know that makes sense to you of how you would respond or certain character traits or the way that they speak or the way that they move. All of that information informs me on how I want to play certain characters. Some of them require more and some of them require less. You know, if I feel like that I may be connected to this person because I know that part of them, then I need to do research on what I don’t understand or that I’m not as familiar with. AM: When you’re finished playing a role, is it hard for you to leave that character depending on how long you have played it? PF: It’s always hard. I always go through this couple of days grieving process and sometimes a week. You come home and you kind of shed that character because that person kind of feels like a part of you and there’s that mourning process in letting that person go. When you’re living in this world of make believe and you’re playing that character and then all of a sudden you’re home and that character is no longer with you, there’s a little bit of a grieving process and that’s ok. I have found that it’s normal to mourn that character for me and to let it go and within a week, you start to get back into that routine of things and then that person’s traits begin to come less and less or that energy is less and less with you. AM: One of the first movies that I remember seeing you in was Can’t Hardly Wait and I was in college when it came out and I was like who is this guy? He’s great. Since then I’ve enjoyed seeing you in Nurse Jackie and other films and movies. It would be impossible to talk to you and not ask you about Twilight because literally every person I talked to as we were in prep for the shoot said they were excited so, how did that come about, how did you get to be in this huge franchise and what was that like? PF: Well to be honest, the first time that they called me, they said, would you be in-
terested in being in a vampire movie and I said no. At the time when I was thinking about it, the vampire cycle had been over so there was like Interview with the Vampire and there were vampire movies that were good, there was a slew that were bad and then there were a bunch of B vampire movies that were horror movies withblood and guts. They weren’t at the time popular or deemed quality or good. They said, "this one is based on a book and has a small following.” So I read the book and I enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was more of a love story with a vampire backdrop and I liked the way it kind of romanticized the vampire world and took it away from the whole blood and guts kind of goriness. It had some grit to it and danger and I liked the family aspect and so I read the book in one sitting. So I said yes and I really enjoyed it and they said that Catherine Hardwicke was directing and I loved her work so again, it’s one of those things where you look to see who’s work is involved and Catherine’s is well done and I thought that she may do something really interesting with it. They said that Catherine wanted to see me in a day or two and so I went in and read with Catherine and then I ended up getting the part. AM: If they were to come back with another movie, would you still want to do it? PF: I mean, I don’t know how they would do it because vampires aren’t supposed to age. But, if they could figure out a way to make it work, I would. I loved that character. It’s so fun to play. AM: Personally, I’m not a person who likes vampire movies personally, but it’s like what you said, there was a huge story and it was so well done that the vampire and the werewolf part fell away and you had this love story which was really nice. So last summer, we enjoyed watching The Vanished which you’re in, you directed and wrote. How was it for you to play so many parts in the same film and how did this
