“Twilight” Star Kristen Stewart Is the Reason Rob Pattinson Became Edward Cullen

The arrival of the entire Twilight film saga at Netflix has everyone streaming (and meme-ing) like it’s 2008 – if streaming would have been a thing then, that is. It’s only been a few days, but the Twilight renaissance is in full force and it begs the question: Is there a better time to revisit the franchise’s genesis than now?

Since the first film premiered in 2008, the adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s novels have become cult classics, with more and more people finding them as years go by. By now we know that Meyer’s dream cast looked very different from the actors that eventually ended up in the films. Over a decade later, it’s almost impossible now to picture any other actors taking on these iconic roles; but did you also know Kristen Stewart played a major part in getting Robert Pattinson cast?

Speaking to Vanity Fair right before the first movie premiered, the actor admitted she “basically cast” her costar. “We did one day of auditions and a bunch of guys came in. Catherine Hardwicke, the director, afterwards was like, ‘What do you think? This is such a hard choice.’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding me!? It’s such an obvious choice!’ It couldn’t have been better. It was sort of perfect,” Kristen said of Rob at the time. Everybody, say: “Thank you, Kristen.” (Fun fact: she also described Twilight as “the portrayal of the ultimate, most epic love story that could be,” which, mmm, is it?)

However, even though Kristen clearly thought RobPat killed his audition, the British actor was not as confident about his chances. “I was literally embarrassed walking into the audition. I had no idea how to play Edward at all. I thought that even going into the audition was completely pointless, because they were just going to cast a model or something,” Rob told Vanity Fair in his interview. “I felt it was kind of arrogant of me to even go in. I was almost having a full-on panic attack before I went to the screen test.” (Very Edward Cullen of him, may I add.)

Rob also told the pub that “casting was really easygoing” – we now know why – and that Kristen was “very cool” but “very serious” – we also know why. “I really wasn’t expecting the girl who plays Bella to be like her at all. Her professionalism made me keep my mouth shut whenever I wasn’t acting. It further gave the illusion of being serious,” he told the publication.

Rob, not one to shy away from a bit of Twilight criticism, has previously described the films as straight-up “weird” and even compared them to “existential art house” films. He also opened up about his first impressions of Edward in that initial interview, saying that the character was written in an “obsessively lustful way” from Bella’s point of view. “What I never really understood about [Edward’s] attractiveness, especially to young girls, is his gentlemanliness,” the Batman actor said in 2008. “I thought that teenage girls like the dangerous aspect of males, and so I tried to emphasize the danger and make the more gentlemanly side of this character a veil to something else underneath. I really tried to make him an incredibly strong and powerful character, but at the same time self-loathing and extremely vulnerable.” (Well, it’s me, I’m Edward Cullen.)