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Tinsel Korey and Booboo Stewart:
Shedding Light on Eclipse
Interviewed by Matthew Anderson

Visiting Denver on the day of a partial lunar eclipse, Tinsel Korey and Booboo Stewart sat down for a two-on-one chat about The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which opens June 30, in time to take advantage of the long July 4 holiday weekend and only 12 days ahead of a total solar eclipse (for those in the southern hemisphere).

The Twilight Saga has turned into an enormous cultural phenomenon, with tween girls and "Twi-moms" and "Twi-grandmas" transforming Stephenie Meyer's books into global bestsellers and the movies into blockbusters. They embrace the story of a teenage girl torn by a lifestyle divide of paranormal proportions. Should Bella Swan (played by teen "fenom" Kristen Stewart) join Team Edward (led by teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson) or Team Jacob (led by another teen sensation, Taylor Lautner)? For those still in the dark, the choice is as dramatic as the historic enmity that separates vampires from werewolves.

Given the immensity of the Twilight series, it'd be easy for the movie to totally eclipse Tinsel and Booboo. But they're a pair of good spirits with level heads and it'll be fun to watch them as their multi-talented careers progress.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Tinsel returns to the Twilight saga after making her series debut as Emily Young in New Moon. She's not Team Edward. She's not Team Jacob. She's Team Sam, a team Tinsel created on-the-spot when asked where her allegiance lies. "I stay loyal to my man," Tinsel said of her character, who bears a massive scar incurred during one of Sam's temper-induced transformations into a wolf.

Eclipse introduces a new character, Seth Clearwater, who attempts to forge a truce between the shape-shifters and the vampires. That's where Booboo comes in.

"I think it's going to be awesome," Booboo said of the opportunity to meet the "Twi-hards" at a free evening screening of New Moon at Sloan's Lake Park in Denver. "The fans are so loyal and none of the fans are like insane," Booboo said. "They just want to know you and they want to be friends with you (that) type of thing, rather than, like, take you to their house and keep you forever, or something. They just want to know who you are and they just want to spend time with you."

Tinsel Korey as Emily Young Booboo Stewart as Seth Clearwater
Tinsel Korey as Emily Young and Booboo Stewart as Seth Clearwater
Photo: Summit Entertainment

Both Tinsel and Booboo eagerly point out Eclipse represents a bit of a departure from the previous two movies. This one has more action that'll appeal to the boys, while there's also plenty more romantic tension for the girls as the love triangle, so to speak, evolves between Bella, Edward, and Jacob.

"It has a lot of great action pieces and what's cool about them is Eclipse, if you haven't seen the first two, if you want, you can just kind of start with Eclipse to get into it," Booboo explained, "because I think for a lot of the guys, they're gonna be like, 'Oh, maybe I don't want to watch the first two, there's not enough action' or something. You can start with Eclipse and still get into the story. Then, if you want, go back and watch the first two."

As for the series' widespread appeal, Booboo said, "I think it's so famous because three generations of people like it, like grandmas and the moms, then their daughters, granddaughters... they all like the same thing, they can all relate to something."

"I think also this is the first time that a film like this, like an action film, has been geared towards women," Tinsel said. "Normally it's all towards men and I think this is the way of females saying, 'Hey, thanks for thinking of us at the same time.' And it's about first loves, right? It takes people back to that first time, those extreme emotions that you feel when you have that. It's not just a book, it's a full experience."

New Directions

Each of the Twilight movies has been brought to the screen under the vision and stylings of a different director. Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) directed the first movie, with Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass) handling New Moon, and David Slade (30 Days of Night) tackling Eclipse. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, will follow the lead of Harry Potter's final novel and will be split into two movies, to be released in 2011 and 2012, under the direction of Bill Condon (Dreamgirls).


About Twi-hards and their characters

Tinsel explained her view of how the two directors she's worked with differed in directorial style. "Chris Weitz, I think, is an actor's director, you know, a lot more feelings and emotions. David Slade is just a lot more technical, because there is so much action and stuff, he was a lot more technically focused."

Booboo, who's new to the series, but not new to acting, liked working with Slade. "David Slade, the director, did such an amazing job with the project, bringing more of a dark side, more action to it, but still keeping romance in it so the girls will be happy, but the guys who go see it will be happy, too."

While both Emily and Seth are in the novel Breaking Dawn and Tinsel is optioned for the movie, it still depends on the direction the final screenplay takes before either Tinsel or Booboo will know if they'll be back. For now, everybody's focused on Eclipse. And, in the world of movies, nothing is really guaranteed. In Eclipse, Bryce Dallas Howard takes over the role of Victoria, a role previously played by Rachelle Lefevre.

Privacy in the Spotlight

As some in the media are known to relish, the series' young stars, particularly Pattinson and Stewart, have been shoved into the spotlight, slapped onto a Petri dish and slipped under a microscope, and have had just about every word and action dissected.

For one thing, Ancestry.com has divulged a report that Pattinson is actually a direct descendant of Vlad the Impaler, a real-life historical figure known for his sheer brutality and, more importantly, as the real Dracula. Surely it's attention-grabbing for Ancestry to promote its online research service by tying the young actor, who plays a vampire in the Twilight series, to the legendary historic figure and create an art-imitating-life aura around the Twilight phenomenon.

It's something that doesn't sit well with Tinsel. "I thought that was a really big invasion of privacy and even though I'm not Rob, I'm offended for him," she said.

"I think they're amazing people," Tinsel said of Twilight's headliners, Pattinson and Stewart. "I think people just like to dissect things; I think everyone in this cast has been dissected to microscopic levels. People see and interpret what they want to interpret because you don't actually have interaction with those people. They're both absolutely lovely people. People ask me about Kristen all the time and they're like, 'She's really shy and reserved.' I'm like, 'She's a professional and she has a lot of pressure, and she's playing this character that people are in love with. And so people can make whatever things they want to make of them, but they're both lovely people."

"Agreed," Booboo said.

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