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Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke liked to keep things strange on the set of the cult vampire film. The first in a five-film franchise was a vast cornucopia of whatever would stick on the wall with its high school romance, filtered through a blue hue, and rife with sparkling vampires playing baseball. Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen) and Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle) reunited at GalaxyCon 2025 in Oklahoma City and were asked by a fan whether they were asked to aim for a specific tone despite there being a lot of random elements, which made it hard as a viewer to pin down a singular tone.

“We didn’t necessarily have to adjust to the oddness,” Greene said. “We just had to be true to our characters within the context of the film and what Catherine was creating. And then there was the cat classes.”

“Catherine had an idea about our vampires were very feline-esque, so she wanted us to move like felines,” Facinelli admitted. “She got us all cat class teachers to show us how to– [act like cats]. There was a lot of purring.” The idea behind it was to build a bond between cast members and if you could look silly together, then you could trust each other. 

Lutz was genuinely shocked at their answer, seemingly left out of the experience and wondered if his cast mates were actually taught by a teacher (they were) because he escaped the exercise by telling Hardwicke that Emmett Cullen was more like a bear. 

Rathbone believed that being on the set of a movie was different than theater or television. The energy on the set comes directly from the director. “Have you met Catherine?” asked back Rathbone before proceeding to impersonate her, flailing his hands, and doing karate kicks all while giving stage directions. 

Hardwicke made her name as production designer for directors such as Richard Linklater, David O. Russell and Cameron Crowe. She made her directorial debut on the decorated indie film from 2003,Thirteen, and later 2005's Lords of Dogtown. 

“Whatever that director’s energy is, it usually transfers into the movie itself. I do think there’s a certain strangeness to Twilight, but that’s what I like about it and a lot of people love about it,” Rathbone explained. “We’re all unique individuals at heart and maybe some of us have the sensibility to be a wallflower, that’s what I think Twilight is, the beauty of wallflowers.”

Twilight was made up of a handful of family tribes and covens, that brought their own vibe. “I would see these families bringing people together and connecting them,” Rathbone reflected. “They’d identify with these outsider characters. Sometimes we feel like outsiders in our lives, but there are a lot of people who feel like that too. So you connect with each other and form a community, then you’re no longer an outsider. That’s what Twilight did for a lot of people and what it did for me.”

“I love the strangeness.”

Want to re-live it all? Here's how to watch all the Twilight movies in order.