New Moon News – Interview with the Volturis

MoviesOnline’s Sheila Roberts has caught up with the Vampires of the Volturis

We caught up with all the members of the Volturi and got to talk about them about their new film New Moon. Those who participated in the interview are as follows;: Michael Sheen (Aro), Jamie Campbell Bower (Caius), Dakota Fanning (Jane) and Cameron Bright (Alec).

The Twilight Saga: New Moon marks the first appearance of the Volturi, the closest the vampire world has to royalty and a major force in the future of the saga. Centuries old and unimaginably powerful, they serve as lawmakers and enforcers for the community. The leader of the group is Aro, played by Michael Sheen. Sheen is no stranger to this world, having played a werewolf enslaved by the vampires in the Underworld series.

Q: Dakota, as such a fan of the series, you’ve said in many interviews before that you were really excited about this so what were the highlights of playing Jane and do you get to do more in the next movie?

Dakota Fanning: I think the highlight of playing Jane was getting to wear that costume and to have the red contact lenses — I was really excited about that – and getting to play an evil character. The next movie I already finished doing, Eclipse, and it’s about the same. It’s 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 Fanning: I know. It’s really scary. I think it makes anyone look automatically evil. But yeah, 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, I wanted to know what you were saying into that tape recorder, but secondly, I wanted to know about you finding your voice. You mentioned the Blue Meanie. Did it take you a while to come up with that or was that kind of an instant thought when you read the script?

Michael Sheen: 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 ofthe Blue Meanie. You remember the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine and the hand that goes with it? And then I was also thinking about characters from when I was a kid watching stuff that really freaked me out andthe Blue Meanie really freaked me out. The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – you know, “Lollipops” and all that. 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, and then he wants to eat your eyes. I liked that sort of idea so that was where Aro came from. And what I said into thetape recorder is between me and whoever owns that tape recorder. [Laughter]

Q: Jamie, can you tell us and describe what the Volturi are for the group?

Jamie Campbell Bower: We are basically the vampire government, I guess. We’re there to sort of 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. So, we’re there to keep everybody in check. Without us, like you were saying earlier, it would turn into complete anarchy. It would be vampire anarchy. So we’re there to keep the Cullens in check in particular. There’s me and Michael and Chris Heyerdahl who plays Marcus, Aro and Caius respectively, and we sit on these big thrones and then there’s you (Dakota) and Charlie (Bewley) and Dan (Cudmore). They’re our runners effectively.

Michael Sheen: It’s quite thrilling to have Dakota Fanning calling you “monster”.

…

Q: Let’s just pretend that you could be the vampire government when the cameras stopped rolling also. With you on set, out of the cast would you have to punish any bad pranksters or jokers there?

Jamie Campbell Bower: I’d like to punish Chris Heyerdahl – not sexually. That sounded a bit naughty, didn’t it?

Cameron Bright: The way they talk on set, it would sound like it wasn’t. They talk hilarious to each other. I don’t know. That’s kind of weird – who would we want to punish – one of the random guards standing in the background of the shot.

Michael Sheen: You could punish Chris Weitz for some truly awful jokes now and again. On the whole, not really, no, they’re all a very sweet bunch, very law abiding. They wouldn’t [inaudible].

Q: So now that you’ve entered into this Twihard machine for fans, how has that been for you, and also, were you obsessed with anything when you were growing up as much as fans are obsessed with this?

Michael Sheen: I haven’t really experienced much of the Twilight fan stuff yet. But, 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 a quite nerve-wracking time when I come out of the cubicle to look in the mirror anyway and I like that to be a private moment. As I came out, there was a woman shaking, going “You’re Aro, aren’t you?!” and I just hid in my cubicle again. Whooo! Anyway, I’m slightly to the right of where you are. [Laughter] That’s been really my only experience with that. Apart from also going into my daughter’s bedroom and seeing — 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. [Laughter] Have Dad up there as well. That was quite a ball [bore?].

More of this interview at MoviesOnline.ca

November 8, 2009 | Categories: New Moon News, The Twilight Saga: New Moon | Tags: Alec, Aro, Caius, Cameron Bright, Dakota Fanning, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jane, Michael Sheen, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Volturi | Leave A Comment »