Twilight Star Talks Soundtrack
We speak to Twilight star Robert Pattinson and director Catherine Hardwicke about the original music.
The US phenomenon that is Twilight hits UK cinemas on 19th December, and we catch up with its director and star to talk about the soundtrack.
Based on Stephenie Meyer's teen vampire romance novels, Twilight tells the story of 17 year old Bella, who falls in love with Edward, who, as a vampire trying to live a normal life among humans, has to overcome his natural desire to kill her.
With a huge following in the US, Twilight fans include Hayley Williams from Paramore, who wrote two new tracks exclusively for the soundtrack, 'Decode' and 'I Caught Myself'. Director Catherine Hardwicke also got her friend Perry Farrell to come up with another song written specially for the movie, 'Going All The Way'.
The most notable inclusions in the film's score are 'Let Me Sign' and 'Never Think', written and performed by Edward himself, actor Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire, Little Ashes). We speak to Pattinson and Hardwicke the day after the insanity of the Leicester Square premiere, where, despite the Jeff Buckley-like songs being suitably haunting, it becomes apparent that Pattinson is bashful of his musical side.
Knowing that Pattinson has never made his music available to the public, we asked Hardwicke how she persuaded the 22-year-old actor to allow his songs to be used in the soundtrack. The director looks jokingly nervous - "I don't want him to throw anything at me!" - as she begins to explain: "I would keep hearing that after shooting, Rob would play songs he'd written to other members of the cast. I would say, oh I'd really love to hear your stuff. Rob would always be, oh I'll bring you a CD tomorrow. Okay, where is it?" She laughs, "Never would he let me hear it!"
Hardwicke then tells how Pattinson's castmate Nikki Reed, who plays fellow vampire clan member Rosalie, sneakily gave the director of Thirteen and Lords Of Dogtown a listen: "Then finally, I heard a little bit on Nikki's computer. I said, oh Rob why don't you come to my friend's house and record a few tracks, whatever, who knows where it could lead. So we went over to my friend's in flip flops and shorts to a house on Venice Beach."
She continues: "The guys laid down, I guess, six tracks, and we took them and played them against scenes in the film, and there were two scenes I just loved, where Rob just, you know, killed me in the film." Hardwicke then explains she showed these scenes to Pattinson, and lets him continue.
Visibly shy to be talking about his work, he relishes the fact that 'Let Me Sign' was co-written by his friends Bobby Long and Marcus Foster. The track is only available on the iTunes version of the original soundtrack, and appears in a dreamlike montage towards the end of the film: "I think one of them ['Let Me Sign'] worked really well with the scene. It's written by two friends of mine - I grew up with loads of musicians - and I thought it would be good for them."
We ask Pattinson if he ever intended for his songs to be made public: No, not really. I'd like to do an album one day, but there's such a stigma attached to actors who release music. I may try and do it anonymously, or wait until I'm unemployable!"
Twilight Original Soundtrack is out now.
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