'Eclipse' star Peter Facinelli shares his views

'Eclipse' star Peter Facinelli shares his views



Back in the day, before "Twilight" had 6.7 million Facebook friends, the movie's cast could socialize in public.

"There were times when Rob would go to some open-mic bar, and he would play guitar, and we would all go there and watch," actor Peter Facinelli recalls of the placid period before Robert Pattinson became known the world over as vampire Edward Cullen or the man who launched a gazillion shrieks and heart palpitations.

Fan enthusiasm meant the cast's freedom was curtailed with each subsequent movie shoot.

Pattinson, as with co-stars Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, is more likely to turn up on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, next to Oprah Winfrey or on the black carpet (a vampire variation of red) than in a casual bar these days.

In "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," the third installment just opening, Facinelli plays Carlisle, a physician and head of the Cullen vampire clan. Although he has never seen a single "ER" or "Grey's Anatomy" episode, he also portrays a distinctive doc on Showtime's "Nurse Jackie" opposite Edie Falco.

It's his off-screen brushes with life and death, however, that are most remarkable.

"A woman came up to me and said, 'Three weeks ago, I tried to kill myself, and my daughter saved me, and my way of paying her back for the gift of life was to bring her here to meet you.' I thought that was pretty powerful, that this movie could have such an effect on a family like that."

He understands the fandemonium of "Twilight," both the Stephenie Meyer books and the movies based on them.

"I'm a fan myself, so when I do a convention or I get in a group where [there are] fans there, I'm as excited as they are. I'm another fan, but I'm fortunate to have a say in the character, which is pretty cool."

Facinelli, 36, is the husband of actress Jennie Garth, father of their three daughters and, in addition to being an actor, a writer with projects in production. He wrote a Hallmark Channel movie that will star his wife and, next month, will start shooting another film he wrote called "Loosies," about a successful pickpocket in New York.

Still, the family man gets plenty of invites from fans to pose provocatively for photos.

"They sometimes ask me to bite their necks. For pictures and stuff, I try to just bite wrists if I'm going to do it because if there's a ton of pictures of me biting women's necks, that's kind of disrespectful to my wife. My rule is, if you're over 60, you get a neck bite, and I'm hoping that you get to live for eternity."

One fan asked Facinelli to sign her arm, which he did. She returned an hour later with his name tattooed on her wrist.

"Eclipse" was Facinelli's favorite book of the series, so he came to the project with high expectations. He said director David Slade, whose credits include "30 Days of Night" and "Hard Candy," exceeded them.

"I think David Slade did a fantastic job with it, and I hope the fans agree," particularly with the way a climactic battle is staged. He and others spent six weeks in fight training ("a little bit of vampire training camp") so they could execute the choreographed moves.

"In the movie, you get a firsthand account, you get to actually see the battle in full effect. . . . For me, as Carlisle, who's mostly pretty reserved and always hiding behind this human facade, you get to see him roll up his sleeves and go to battle and see what they're capable of doing as these animalistic vampires."

It was an incident before the first movie even hit theaters that gave Facinelli a sense of what was to come.

"Right after I finished 'Twilight,' I went on vacation to Hawaii and there were a lot of fans on the beaches reading the books," he recalls. He swam out to a floating dock and was lying there when an Internet-savvy girl followed and asked, "You play Carlisle in 'Twilight,' don't you?"

"When the premiere came for 'Twilight,' there was just four blocks of screaming fans and it was very surreal. I remember thinking, 'This is pretty fantastic, this kind of support.'

"But then, the next thought through my head was, well, 'They haven't seen the movie yet. We're in trouble if they don't like it 'cause this happy crowd is going to turn into an angry mob.' Thankfully, they all enjoyed it, [they've] been supportive ever since and I hope they enjoy 'Eclipse' just as much, if not more."

Later this year, he could start doing double duty again, shooting the first of two "Breaking Dawn" movies, based on the fourth "Twilight" novel, and "Nurse Jackie."

"I shot 'Nurse Jackie' season two and 'Eclipse' at the same time. There was a month overlap, so I was flying back and forth from New York to Vancouver to L.A. to see my family. It was a busy month for me. I'm sure that there might be a little overlap with this one, and I'll be doing the same. I love what I do, and I love my family, so I make it all work out."