And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. . .PART 2 of Day 1, The Official Twilight Convention, NJ!  All about Catherine & Gil. . .(sorry for these dark pics and for limited pics of Gil – our cameras didn’t work so well for these, which means I need a new one!)

I would sum up Catherine Hardwicke in 3 words: spunky, charming and real.  I must admit I wasn’t thrilled when she was added to this line up at the last minute due to the absence of our vamps filming Eclipse, and I thought she was flaky in most interviews I’ve seen.  I was in for a real education because Catherine is so great in person!  She’s such a free spirit, animated and always in motion – a petite fire ball.  The Q&A with her was enlightening to me – my apologies for anyone that’s seen this information in past interviews with her:

Catherine studied architecture at University of Texas (“Hook ‘em horns!”) and she talked about how that influences her work – the melding of vision and practicality – not just seeing what you want to create but figuring out how to build it.  She has a true vision, particularly in describing how she pitched ideas and even casting to Summit.  She told of her choice of Rob, and how she sent him over to Summit after the infamous audition with Kristen on Catherine’s own bed – telling us how he showed up at Summit looking a bit of a mess with a body built by pub crawling, and Summit questioning her choice, “wait, this character’s supposed to be the most gorgeous man in the world, and you sent us this guy?”  She convinced Summit that she’d build Edward out of Rob with some tweaking here and there – her masterpiece definitely came to life.  She interacted with the audience today, showing her love of the fans and her true understanding of our expectations.  Questioned about the lack of “meadow” scene in the movie, she noted “it would have been real difficult and expensive to shoot a scene where we had to have Edward sparkling so long.”  Ah, that makes sense to me now!  When the floor was opened to audience questions, my high arm waving caught her attention for the last question of the session: fans are concerned about Kristen’s ability to pull off the depth of Bella’s depression and sorrow in New Moon – did she really shed tears in Twilight, like the reveal scene in the forest leads us to believe?  Catherine very confidently told us “Yes, that is the last thing I would ever be concerned with – NO ONE can pull that off like Kristen – she is the real deal and truly feels it that deep. And that emotion in the reveal scene was totally real and all Kristen!”  I think we all breathed a sigh of relief, and during the photo op I thanked her for her candor and for giving us peace of mind.  She responded “you have nothing to worry about – she will nail it!”  Yep, I am so bringing the Costco size kleenex with me to the theater!

The photo op and autographs with her were like talking to your best friend and mom all rolled into one – she’s incredibly approachable, and put her arm right around me and my sis and smiled for the camera.  In the autograph sessions she bantered with fans like they were old friends, and graciously agreed to sign two items (instead of the “regulation” one item) for us both.  Like I said, today’s event really changed my view of her and I am truly honored to have had the pleasure of meeting her.

Over lunch we struggled with what questions we wanted to submit for Gil – I mean, what do you ask the guy that hasn’t been asked and he’s sort of not even that big of a character in the movie?  So we came up with two sort of lame ones. . .first, does Charlie really pull Billy up all those stairs in the wheelchair to get him in the house to watch the game? (because it sounds like he’s doing it and yet its mind boggling how Charlie would get that much strength) And second, how was filming New Moon different for you than Twilight?  Naturally there were far more interesting questions in the session.

We started our time with Gil waiting in line for the photo op with him, and after about 20 minutes, staff confirmed he hadn’t arrived yet.  It was a nasty, rainy day here and, given all my travel to NJ for work, I know that this area is notorious for horrible traffic, so I figured, he was obviously sitting in it somewhere.  We wondered if they’d bring him right down the hall in front of everyone once he arrived or through a service hall and entrance, and I figured the latter.  Lo and behold, we look up and here he comes through the service entrance and down the hall toward us all!  He’s all smiles “hey guys!” to which all of course applaud and my sis and I look at each other like O-M-B. . .who knew he was so HOT?!  He’s looking quite nice in dark jeans and a black shirt, hair pulled back into a pony tail at the nape of his neck and looking like he just came from the gym all pumped up.  NICE!

Same as our photo op with Catherine, my sis and I are in the pic together and I greet him with “so, NJ traffic got you hung up, huh?” He laughs and says “yep and I was only a few miles away at my hotel, since I arrived at 2am.”  I said “hey we arrived here at 3am” and he asked where we came in from, etc.  I must say I was shocked I could keep my composure and form coherent sentences looking at him LOL  He puts his arms around the two of us, pulls us in close and smiles a huge smile for the camera LOVE IT!

So I learned a few things from Gil as well today, some of which you may already know if you follow Pel from Lexicon on Twitter, as she was tweeting deets during the session.  Gil loves music and first started playing guitar at age 10 – his influences are classics: Clapton, Hendrix, Beck and he even threw in Bon Jovi (the crowd went wild over all of them).  Being raised by a “practical mom,” he pursued engineering and a few years of that post grad and he said, “this is not what I want to do, its killing my soul!” He got into body building and caught the acting bug after performing in the music video for Diana Ross’ Muscles.  He’s most proud of his work in Into the West and talked a good deal about changing the face of typecasting in Native American roles, and how he’s so proud to see his good friends Chaske (Sam), Tinsel (Emily) and Julia (Leah) joining the pack. . .”The tribe is growing” he mused.  He said he’s not a sci fi fan but “the beauty of Twilight is that the wolves transform because of danger – they do it to protect humans.”  He loves that.  And he decided to take the role because of the audition with Catherine – “it just felt right, very comfortable.”

Asked about Taylor he said he didn’t want to gush, but he did anyway: “I’m always amazed at how mature and funny he is.” He joked with Taylor when he showed up buff to the New Moon set the first time, “what happened to your brother?” he asked him.  When asked about working a wheel chair, he gave accolades to those that live it every day saying it was difficult but he gets so much positive feedback from those in wheelchairs about him portraying a strong, active character vs. someone dark and depressed.  He said it really hit home when filming the search and rescue scene in New Moon: “Sam finds Bella and everyone’s running to get her, and I’m about to get up and I’m like, hey, I can’t run.  I’m in a wheelchair.  HELLO!”  When asked about the inconsistency of Billy driving in the movie he chuckled, “yeah, isn’t that the reason I sold the truck to Charlie. . .because I couldn’t drive it?!” But he said they stuck with it because “it would have been awkward to try and stare down Edward from the passenger seat.” Then he demonstrated the stare with Hillywood’s Edward – so funny!

I have a new appreciation for Gil and his character Billy Black – not even including how hot he is in real life LOL  And while I was disappointed in missing Ashley, Kellan, Jackson, Peter and Billy, I have to say today’s events were so worth the trip.  I learned a lot from both Catherine and Gil and I am once again so grateful that I discovered this Twilight obsession!

Stay tuned for our Day 2 report tomorrow night.  This is Cullenized signing off – sweet dreams!