That bit part in Twilight paid off — Dakota Fanning says it had a big perk
Dakota Fanning says playing Twilight’s Jane had a perk her co-stars didn’t enjoy — and, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she explained why her stint felt ideal.
If you were breathing air in the late 2000s, you did not escape the Twilight hysteria. It was everywhere: books, films, banners, T-shirts, and the collective sighing of millions over sparkly immortals. But, as Dakota Fanning is more than happy to point out, riding shotgun in that pop culture juggernaut came with some major perks.
Not Bella, but Vampire Royalty
On a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Fanning, who played the creepy yet somehow scene-stealing Volturi enforcer Jane, gave a very honest account of what it was like to be part of the Twilight machine. She landed the role back in her teens, just as she was slogging through a normal high school (where, of course, everyone was bleeding Twilight from the eyes).
Fanning made it clear she never auditioned for Bella Swan because, quite simply, she was 'just a bit young for it' when casting was first underway. By the time she broke into the franchise, the whole thing was already snowballing into something massive. The leads—Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner—she said, more or less thought they were working on some odd little vampire film for the goth crowd. Cue several years and roughly three billion dollars later, and you can imagine their shock.
On the podcast, Dakota Fanning explained, 'Getting to be a part of that … I got like, kind of just all the good parts of it. … I didn’t have really any of the pressure' placed on the franchise's main stars. 'I just got the kind of fun experience. So, it was like ideal, you know?'
Her character Jane showed up throughout three films, popping in and out just enough to keep things interesting, but never anywhere near the Twilight firing line. Fanning summed up Jane as 'just a little character that was popped in, popped out, popped in, popped out.' Even at the wildest moments—Comic-Con with its apocalyptic levels of screaming fans—she got almost all of the fun and very little of the headache. Not a bad trade-off, especially when you consider the magazine racks and paparazzi swarming her co-stars for years after.
Fanning also said playing Jane 'was amazing and it’s where I met Kristen, who you know is one of my closest friends.'
The multimillion-dollar bonus for Fanning? Making one of her best mates in Kristen Stewart. And speaking of money, in case you ever doubted just how much Twilight dominated, its films raked in a combined $3.3 billion around the world—call that a vampire’s ransom.
The Twilight saga grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide during its cinema run.
Twilight’s legacy refuses to be staked: Netflix is currently brewing up an animated series based on Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun, so if you thought you’d seen the last of the pretty undead, think again.