MTV's interview with Weitz on Robert's Screen Time & Cliff Diving Scene

It is insane to believe, but with all the hype around the return of Stephenie Meyer's vamps this fall, the big screen adaptation of "New Moon," is aiming to be even huger than its predecessor "Twilight." MTV got a chance to sit down with new-to-the-series director Chris Weitz and ask him some questions about the new film.


Most important to the sequel is the incorporation of hottie Robert Pattinson, who has become a sex symbol for "Twilight" fans and integral to the obsession behind the series. In the novel, Rob's Edward is MIA until the end of the story, but Chris said finding the balance between too much Rob just for profits and too little Rob which would spark fan anger was one of the more difficult aspects of the adaptation.

"[We wanted to avoid] just randomly inserting Rob throughout the movie in a back-at-the-ranch sort of way," Chris said. "What we basically did was to take the aural hallucinations that Bella has of Edward and turn them into visual hallucinations ... You'll see quite a lot of Rob in the film, but it's seen subjectively, through Bella's eyes. It's also in dreams that she has of him as well. It strikes this very fine balance between too much Rob and too little Rob."

Heck, is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Chris doesn't really think so, but he adds that he has the prescription for any fans' heartaches. "I know for a lot of people there's no such thing as too much Rob," the filmmaker explained. "But we've got a nice dose of Taylor [Lautner] to sweeten any Rob deficiencies. It is a disease that can only be treated with Vitamin T, for Taylor."

The idea of "New Moon" being from Bella's perspective was something Chris used to his advantage. Not only did it make it easy for him to incorporate Edward without him being in the story, but it also gave him creative liberties with scenes that were not within the actual text of the novel.

"When Alice has a vision of Edward about to commit suicide, we see her vision [in the film]. To me, that's fair because, in the book, Alice conveys that immediately to Bella, and you can see Bella imagining what Alice is saying," added Chris. "At points where a reader of the book might logically imagine a scenario, it was OK for the filmmakers — me — to imagine seeing something that would be outside of Bella's knowledge at that point. Or something that's within the scope of her imagination."


Speaking of imagination, Chris has also finally revealed a little bit about what it took to create the pivotal cliff-diving scene in which Bella dares defy Edward's "be safe" wishes. "It's a hybrid," the director says of the CGI needed to make everything look as realistic as possible. "We needed to create just the right kind of stormy weather, so there's a lot of CG water and waves, which we combined with pool work that we did with Kristen. Eventually, it looks like a scene with a real location, but in order to get the kind of pinpoint control that you want to accurately represent what's in the book, you need to employ the very best that you can in terms of CGI. People should never notice when that's happening — except when I just gave it away [Laughs.]."

Source: MTV.com