Twilight Night was a true fan party! Atlanta band Stellate performed on stage in Atlantic Station’s Central Park, ending their set with “Decode” made famous on the Twilight Soundtrack.

Local radio station Q100 had an Ultimate Fan Contest where two fans where chosen to compete in Twilight Trivia on stage while Daniel Cudmore judged the correct answers. The winner has showered with VIP passes for a Monday screening of Eclipse and various Twilight merch. There were also Twi-toos, Twilight mini makeovers, Blood red carpet photos, a fanged photo booth, face painting, free popcorn & Vitamin Water,  Moon Pie making, Kilwin’s candy apples, corn dogs, blood red Giovanni snow cones, and Funnel cakes

With only two days left until the Eclipse premiers across the nation, Shakefire was lucky enough to sit down with Daniel Cudmore (Felix of the Volturi) during Atlanta’s Twilight Night.  We talked about being a part of Twilight, what he thinks of Breaking Dawn, and how his future might contain not only comedy & drama films, but also wheelchair racing!
 
SHAKEFIRE: You played in the first ever Celebrity-Alumni Softball Classic earlier today.  What position did you play?  Who won?
DANIEL CUDMORE: Uh, Some where out in the outfield?  They changed every single time.  It was tie.

SF: Is that your chosen sport?
DC: No, I’ve played everything under the sun except for baseball. I’m not gonna lie, it was slow pitch.  I’m not that good of a baseball player.  I’m more like football, basketball, hockey, rugby, soccer, snowboarding, ski racing—a broad spectrum of things.

SF: Wow!
DC: Yeah, I was all over the map.  I was a hyperactive kid, so my parents where like, “Three boys? You guys are gonna play sports non-stop.  It’s either that or get into trouble.”

SF:  So, you didn’t even have to focus on staying in shape.
DC: Nah, I just never stop moving. When I was younger I was just out running around. Our house was back in the woods, so we’d just go. We were never really inside. We didn’t have a TV when I was younger. So, I just ran around with a bunch of crazy kids.

SF: How was the premier last night?
DC: It was insane!  It was madness.  That day was the most stressful day of my life.  My friend’s car broke down during the day when I was going to try my suit on—just hours before the premier.  I didn’t even know if the suit would fit. I’m driving over there and this Prius just dies.  I’m in this super busy intersection in LA and people are honking their horns.  I have my hazard lights on and my girlfriend and I are pushing this car around the corner! 

Then the premier, finally every worked out when we got there.  I think there were 4,000 or more people there?  It was nuts.  It was just people screaming and two hours of press lines and photographs and WOOO!s

SF: I heard there were about 500 people camped out since the Monday before the premier
DC: Yeah!  Oh, man, it was wild! 

SF:  How does it feel to be a part of this big Twilight sensation?
DC: Very humbling, very blessed.  It really started with the books; Stephenie Meyer did such a great job. Summit did such a good job at casting it.  It’s like lightening in a bottle, you’re just thrust into this world, and people are screaming at you.  Some times they don’t even know who you are, they’re just gonna scream at you!  For an actor it’s great to have this much hype & publicity going on around you.  It’s just all in all a really, really cool experience.

I was talking about it the other night I don’t think I’m going to really realize it until a year from now, when I’m away from the whole world and maybe working on something else.  I’ll get to look back and go, “Wow that was a wild time.” 

I just think that with things like this, you’re so caught up in it.  You’re right  in the eye of the storm.  You don’t really realize what you’ve gone through until you’re away from it because then you can actually sit back & reflect.  I literally feel like George Clooney in “Up in the Air”—I’m living in a suitcase.  I stop off at my apartment, wash my clothes, pack up and I’m gone for the next couple of days.  You never really get a true sense of what’s happening until you can step back from it.

SF: But did you know you wanted to step into it?  How did you audition for Twilight?
DC: I had no understanding, no idea of what it was going to be like.  I ended up auditioning for one character, not getting the part, and auditioning for another character and I didn’t even know it!  I finally got the job and it was like, “Alright.  Now you’re in this world.”  You have no idea what it’s going to be like until you’re flying to Italy and there are thousands of people trying to grab you—it’s just this weird kind of world.

SF: I know that when you auditioned for Colossus, they made you strip down to your skivvies
DC: Yeah, this time I got to wear clothes!  So that was nice, that was kind of cool.  But uh, yeah, Colossus was a funny one, I was half naked in that room. But this time I got to wear some clothing, which is great, because on set I can just eat whatever I want to.  You’ve got the wolf pack guys just working out all the time, eating veggies just starring at me eating doughnuts. It was a lot of fun

SF: What was the role you auditioned for, but lost in New Moon?
DC: I auditioned for the guy who meets Bella outside of the bar sitting on a motorcycle. I just found out I lost a role in a TV series & I was kind of down in the dumps when I got a call back.  I had to fly back & I eventually got to talk with the casting director and said, “Alright, so this vampire—“ and I said, “What do you mean vampire?  I’m outside the bar on a bike!”

SF: Did you see the movie last night?  What did you think?
DC: I saw it on Thursday night. I liked it. I mean, it’s a darker book. The book is about revenge and double crossing.  It still has that love story, but it’s a film about revenge.  You know, David Slade, his past films have that darker edge to them.  I really enjoyed 30 Days of Night and then this one has more of a raw, aggressive feel too.  At the same time seems to get bigger and bigger. It’s a great ride. He did a great job of keeping everything in the book in the movie, but not over punctuating one section; every piece got its own bit of time.

SF: Did Slade tell you what he wanted to see in your character?  What he wanted you to bring to Felix?
DC: We discussed and we talked about he just wanted it to be from a real emotional place.  So when we were filming my scenes, I just kind of brought it out more. I think on the last one [New Moon] I wasn’t as aggressive. But the scene that we’re working on is telling you one thing, but you know another thing and you have to hold your tongue.  So it was fun to play with that; me & Dakota.

SF: Just from the scenes Summit has released, you see a lot more Volturi in the movie than you do in the book.
DC: Yeah, we got a little added in there, which was nice!  It was great for me.  It made sense. There’s not much mentioned in the book of Volturi until the very end.  It would be weird if that’s the way the movie was shot, like “Okay, where did they come from? Did they just float across the ocean?”  It was nice for the scenes that set everything up so it would make more sense.

SF: What do you see for “Breaking Dawn”?
DC: Man, I don’t know.  I see a large task ahead for Bill Condon.  I wouldn’t want to be the one helming it.  It’s the end, y’know, it’s the big finale in two films.  So, I mean, who knows?  It’s just going to be this huge, massive undertaking.  I don’t know what they’re going to do.

SF: Have you read the whole last book?
DC: I’ve almost finished it.  I’m right at the tale end of it.  I’ve been traveling so much, I’ve got to just go back home and read the end of it.  I want to know how they’re going to do the birth scene!  That’s got to be interesting.

SF: It’s got to be off camera.
DC: {laughs} Yeah, it can’t be shown.  That amount of blood flying around, that wouldn’t be good.

SF: What was it like to shoot the fight scene with Robert Pattinson?
DC: Yeah, we had a good fight scene.  I got to work with him a lot more on the last one than I did with this one because our characters don’t really interact that much.  The last film was a lot of fun filming that fight scene.  He was pretty gung-ho too, I wasn’t sure how into it he was going to be because it was a lot of action.  He was all ready to go and ready to roll into it.

SF: You didn’t have to be too delicate?
DC: No, not at all.  It wouldn’t have worked if I was delicate. It would look half-assed.

SF: What was your favorite scene to shoot for Eclipse?
DC: The one scene that me & Dakota had; just because it was fun to act with her.  She’s such a cool girl and a good person and so talented.  It was a lot of fun to interact on that one.  We didn’t have a ton of time during the film, but what he had—it was good. It’s weird, she’s 16 years old, but you talk to her and it’s like she’s 35.

SF: She’s a veteran!
DC: Yeah!  She’s so mature.  If I was that mature at that age I’d be killing movies.  I was just running around like a goof.

SF: Your character, Felix, symbolizes a lot of power and Colossus was the same way.  Are you afraid of being typecast?
DC:  A lot of the physique goes into these characters.  I must have done something right in the room, brought something that was in real in my life to that character. In an industry where you never know where your next job might come from, being typecast isn’t such a bad thing.

You do get the point where you’ve you built your resume you can stray away from those powerful roles and start doing something that make people think, “whoa, I did not think I’d see him like that!”  Really kind of stretch myself in a completely opposite direction that would push me, emotionally, physically, mentally.  I’m hoping that’s where it goes.

SF: What do you think would be the next thing; comedy or drama?
DC: I’m not sure.  As for comedy, I’d love to just make a fool of myself.  I’d love to do an indie-drama or just a tough script you look at and think, “How am I going to build this character?”  Where you really just have to sit down and work on something and pulling things out  it [the character].  For guys, it’s hard. We kind of layer ourselves, we’re not supposed to be emotional—we’re never emotional.  So to pull out these emotions that have been set & pushed back into ourselves would be a really cool thing for me to do.

SF: What has been your favorite part about this Twilight Tour, seeing all these different cities?
DC:  I think it’s that right there—going around to different cities.  The only disappointment is that I don’t get a lot of time in each city, but at the same time I’m going to places I wouldn’t go normally. That in itself has been great and really fun for me. I’m very much a gypsy, I get that from my mom. 

SF: How has your family reacted to all of this? Especially your brothers
DC: My brothers are funny because they’re both professional athletes, so they like to rib. It’s the brother dynamic: trying to one up the other guy or get under his skin. Like any family would be, if you’re doing well at what you’ve chosen to do, they’re happy.  I’ve got a really supportive family.

SF: Are you a thrill seeker? You seem to do a lot of your own stunts
DC: I’m one of those people that if I see something and it looks cool, I think I can do it and I want to try it. But I’m the first to admit when I can’t do something.  If I know there’s a stunt that I can’t do and it won’t look cool then I’m totally fine with a stuntman coming in to do what he does best. I want to go sky diving.  I’ve bungee jumped a couple of times.  I like fast bikes, I like fast cars—I like things that make you feel awake and alive. I can’t stand just sitting around and let things pass by. I don’t want any regrets. I want to do as much as possible. Some people don’t get to experience it, but I want to do as much as possible until I’m old and in a wheelchair.

SF: You’ll be wheelchair racing!
DC: Yeah, definitely.

SF: Does acting ever feel like that? Does it give you that rush?
DC: Yeah, it does. If you’ve really done your work and you’ve lost yourself in a scene, it’s a really cool experience when it clicks and you’re working with another actor who’s giving you so much. When it’s over and you forget what just happened. Then it’s amazing and so much fun. A lot of good work comes out of that.

SF: I know a lot people on the cast are musical. Are you?
DC: Me, not so much.  I can sing so well in the shower—I’m amazing. In the car, I’m cranking it up.  I’m trying to teach myself how to play guitar, but I have bushels of bananas for fingers, like Tony Robbin’s hands. So it’s painful to get in-between the frets. I’d love to be as musical as the other cast, but you can’t have everything.

SF: What’s your day like on set? How long does it take to do your make-up?
DC: On set, you never know it. It can be a hectic day or a lot of standing around. It really just depends on what we’re doing that day.  Make up isn’t too bad.  It only takes us an hour to get us all pale & the red eye contacts.

SF: Did they ever tell you to not go in sun off film?
DC: Yeah! When I learned that I got New Moon, it was just coming out of our winter in Vancouver and I looked like a big milk bag, I was pale. I was so excited for the hot weather and I just wanted to soak up the sun. They saw the weather coming and called me and told me not to go out in the sun. I’m putting on like 70 sun block.  No, you couldn’t be in the sun, which was no good for me!