Trivia, Hidden Gems
and Fan Secrets

The Dream That Almost Didn't Happen

Stephenie Meyer had never written anything before Twilight. Like, nothing. She had an English degree from BYU and she had been a stay-at-home mom for years. The dream happened on June 2, 2003. She woke up, got the kids ready for the day, and then sat down and wrote the meadow scene from memory before it could fade. That became Chapter 13.

She never planned on showing anybody. She wrote the whole novel essentially for herself, to find out what happened next. When she finally let her sister read it, her sister told her to submit it. She sent query letters to fifteen literary agents. Five asked for the manuscript and one signed her and the advance was $750,000. All of that from a dream she almost didn't write down.

The Casting That Almost Was

The cast feels so obvious now. It almost looked totally different. Stephenie Meyer wanted Henry Cavill for Edward. He was ruled out for being too old at 24. She wanted Emily Browning for Bella. Her other dream picks included Charlie Hunnam as Carlisle, Tom Welling as Emmett, Rachael Leigh Cook as Alice, and Olivia Wilde as Rosalie.

Jennifer Lawrence auditioned for Bella and didn't get it. Michelle Trachtenberg was considered. Frances Bean Cobain was approached and declined, possibly because she isn't an actress lol. Robert Pattinson almost didn't get Edward either. He had to fly to director Catherine Hardwicke's house and audition on her actual bed to prove the chemistry with Kristen Stewart worked. It worked.

The Stephenie Meyer Cameo

Meyer appears in the first film. She's in the Carver Cafe, the diner where Charlie and Bella eat dinner, sitting next to a laptop and ordering a vegetarian sandwich. The scene is the one where Charlie asks Bella if she likes any of the boys at school. She's visible in the background at approximately the 1 hour 12 minute mark. Most people have watched this movie a hundred times and never noticed. Now you'll never not see her.

The Wigs

Almost the entire Cullen family wore wigs during filming. The shooting schedule meant there wasn't time for everyone to grow or dye their hair to match the books and the production couldn't wait. Robert Pattinson has said his wig was deeply uncomfortable. Jackson Rathbone said his gave him headaches. The Jasper wig in particular became legendary. There is a specific scene in the first film where Jasper looks like he is in physical pain and fans have debated for years whether he is acting or just suffering through the hairpiece. The answer is both haha.

The Baseball Scene Was Real

The baseball game in the first film, the Cullens playing during a thunderstorm because they hit so hard they need the thunder to cover the sound, was filmed at Madras Airport in Oregon in actual weather. The cast was really playing baseball in the dark. Nikki Reed, who played Rosalie, has said it was one of the most fun days of filming because it was so uncomfortable and had an energy that was impossible to fake. Supermassive Black Hole by Muse playing over vampires playing baseball in a thunderstorm is still perfect and everybody knew it while they were making it.

Midnight Sun: The Leak and the Long Wait

Meyer had been working on Midnight Sun, the retelling of the first book from Edward's perspective, for years before it became public. In 2008, someone leaked the first twelve chapters online without her permission. She was crushed. She posted the leaked chapters herself so fans could read the authorized version rather than a pirated one, and then she stopped working on the book entirely. She said publicly that if she tried to write it in her current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die.

She eventually came back to it. Midnight Sun was finally published in August 2020, twelve years after the leak. It debuted at number one and sold over a million copies in its first week. The wait made it mean more. That's almost always how it works.