Exclusive interview with New Moon’s Cameron Bright

Tribute caught up with Canadian-born Cameron Bright, who plays Alec, the twin brother of Dakota Fanning’s character Jane in The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Alec is a vampire who lives in Italy with the Volturi, the coven that enforces the laws of the vampire world. Cameron began his career at a very young age, and has played lead roles opposite stars such as Nicole Kidman in Birth and Robert DeNiro in Godsend.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon DVD is being released on Saturday, March 20th and Cameron spoke to Tribute’s Alexandra Heilbron by phone from his home on Vancouver Island about getting the role and what filming was like.

Had you seen Twilight before you were cast in New Moon?
Yes, I had, I’d seen it a while before.

Did you audition for the role of Alec?
I was supposed to, but I actually missed the audition of all things, or I couldn’t make it and I called my agent. I was freaking, because I wanted to audition, and she said “Don’t worry about it, they might just offer it to you.” So it was a big stress off my back, but I mean, that just makes me all that much luckier too.

Some of the scenes involving the Volturi were filmed in Italy. Is that where were your scenes filmed?
No, sadly enough I was in the Vancouver film studios because all my stuff was inside.

How many days did your scenes take?
We were there for a week and a half, in entirety it was about eight days.

Tell me about your experience on the set.
This cast is such a huge cast and they’re pretty much the best at what they do. You’ve got Michael Sheen, there’s Christopher Heyerdahl, there’s all these great people like Jamie Campbell Bower and then there’s Dakota Fanning and RPattz and Taylor and every single person is just absolutely amazing. Not only as an actor, but as a person too. I got on set, met them all and by the time Eclipse came along, they were just chillin’. It was the same thing, we showed up, and saw everybody again and it was all good.

A lot of successful actors like yourself, who’ve had starring roles in big movies, signed on to do smaller roles in this movie. What did this movie offer to attract big name actors into doing small roles?
Simply, it doesn’t matter if you’re a big or a small actor, you want to be a part of this movie because it’s one of those movies. It’s huge and as far as your job lies, you want to be in the best and you want to be in a movie with the best. And that’s what this movie is.

What’s the process you go through while working on a role?
This one’s unique because these movies are based on the books, so you have to follow the character to that point, but after you realize, ‘Okay I’m supposed to be mean, or okay, I have orange eyes, okay I’m a vampire,’ after that, you get to do whatever you want. That’s the greatest thing about it. Each character is his own individual character and for me, I just think of being a vampire and what I’d be like if I was in his shoes.

You had to wear orange contacts for the movie?
Yeah, they’re neon orange.

Does the world look different when you’re wearing those?
A little bit fuzzy, and you get tunnel vision. Basically, where the coloring is, you can’t see, and where the coloring isn’t, you can. So you can see straight and then you can see the sides, but that’s it. So there’s like a blank spot, kind of. Other than that, it’s not too bad.

There were different directors for New Moon and Eclipse. What is the main difference in style between these two movies?
I think Eclipse is going to be more edgy and that’s what I like. I have a feeling I’m going to like Eclipse even more than New Moon. But like anything, the first (Twilight), second (New Moon) and third (Eclipse), it’s guaranteed the second one’s going to be better than the first. So Eclipse is going to be better than the second one. That’s how it is.

Can you tell us anything about what your character does in Eclipse?
No, I can’t really tell you, I want to keep the suspense.