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Another Twilight Saga actor almost took Robert Pattinson's Edward role, until they screentested with Kristen Stewart's Bella
Somewhere out there, footage from the Twilight casting process of Jackson Rathbone running around a park in Pittsburgh with Kristen Stewart on his back exists and we desperately need to see it.
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We absolutely adore the weird chaos gremlin that Robert Pattinson has become, but so many things had to fall into place for him to reach this point in his career. Most importantly, he had to beat out other actors for the role of Edward in Twilight. One actor who also auditioned for the role was Jackson Rathbone, who fans will recognize as the actor who played Jasper Cullen in the Twilight films. While he did read for the role of Edward, his audition was so off-putting that the director knew he’d be a perfectly creepy Jasper.
In case you need a refresher – it has been almost 20 years since the first Twilight movie came out – Jasper is the newest member of the Cullen family of vampires and can manipulate people’s emotions. This makes him a bit of a weird, creepy character. At a recent appearance at GalaxyCon Richmond, Jackson Rathbone explained that he was one of the finalists to play Edward instead.
“I read for Edward and it was down to me and Rob and one other cat,” the actor explained. “They actually flew me to Pittsburgh with [Twilight director] Catherine Hardwicke to go audition Kristen Stewart as Bella. So I went and I played the part of Edward and there’s this behind-the-scenes footage of Kristen on my back in a park.”
While we absolutely need to see this footage, Rathbone admits that he probably wasn’t the right person to play Edward Cullen. “They made the right choice with Rob. I was just like ‘What… what are we doing?’” At this point, Jackson Rathbone gives an intense stare at the audience. “And Catherine’s like ‘Wait, freak. Do that again.’ And I’m like ‘What do you mean? Do what again?’ And she’s like ‘That! That’s it! That’s Jasper.’”
From there, Catherine Hardwicke talked Jackson Rathbone into playing Jasper rather than Edward, saving us from an even creepier version of Edward and from a world where Robert Pattinson doesn’t make things up in every interview he’s in just because he can. Thank goodness.
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