MakingOf: So let’s talk about the relationships for a second. How do you work

with the actors?

(David Slade): My process with actors is usually quite idiosyncratic. What I’ll try and do is I’ll try and not… I do rehearse as much as I possibly can. On ‘Hard Candy’ there was a lot, on ’30 Days of Night’ there was a lot. On [Eclipse], the schedule was way tighter so we had some and we used as much as we could. My process is I’ll try and meet the actors one-on-one first. First of all, particularly with this, going into a film where there’s two predecessors, I had to get as much information from them about what they felt about their character to start with. That’s where I had to begin. I had to suppress all of my own personal feelings first, and just gather information. So, the first meetings are one-on-ones, and then the second meeting again, one-on-ones, combine everything that they’ve said about their character with what may change or might be right for this film. And then, two or three more meetings: question-answering meetings, slight rehearsal meetings, discussing lines, and this is all done separate from each other. Then we come into rehearsal, and as we come into rehearsal I know everyone’s point of view, I have my own point of view, and we’re not discussion that character in the room, we’re just discussing scene. So, that’s how I’ve managed to create ensemble, because I ask people not to talk too much about character and just to talk about scene. And it makes for a more interesting rehearsal process because we deal with purely content. We don’t do too much of rehearsal, we do basic blocking and we just make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Particularly with these actors, you kind of get a since of which actors like rehearsal, which actors need rehearsal, not need in the sense of because of skill level but because it’s an emotional want and an emotional need. And you also gage which actors just don’t like it, and don’t need it. And which actors just really enjoy it and get a lot out of it. And that will balance with the schedule, so for instance, I wouldn’t have as much time with the three main leads because of their obligations to press on the other movies but I had more time with Bryce [Dallas Howard] and Xavier [Samuel]. So, we really rehearsed the hell out of their scenes, which worked great, and we could get into very small nuances. And they were new characters, Bryce was new to the franchise, and we were going to go with a slightly different take with her character anyway, and Xavier was new so there was a much broader canvas. With the leads, they new who they were, we just had to tweak, and change, and move around. And then the ensemble performance rehearsals were really just about getting the content down and making sure that we great with our blocking. Trying not to cut off inspiration was always the way. We always allow there to be a little bit of inspiration. It’s eighty-five percent preparation and then enough for them to go. Particularly with Rob [Pattinson] who is very charismatic and will improvise, and sometimes his improvisations are wonderful