Mike Welch talks about Music

Here is a video of Mike Welch aka Mike Newton, where he talks about his love for music. According to the actor, he is a pretty decent drummer and if there is a drum set around, he would play the drums.

These Twilight cast are talented musicians!

Thanks to Twilight Lexicon.

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Q&A with Mike Welch

Michael Welch was interviewed by the National Post Canada and he talked about being part of the Twilight Saga, the fans, working with the cast and under Chris Weitz and Breaking Dawn. Here is an excerpt of his interview:

Q: Did you ever anticipate that the Twilight phenomenon would grow to what it has become?

A: Well I certainly knew that it was a possibility that this could be a very successful film franchise. It’s difficult to anticipate how big it’s actually become. But I think that my first sense was right after the movie was announced, the internet exploded. The buzz around it was just electric. And then when we started filming, and there would be footage of what we did on set that day, online, that night; it just blew my mind. So I knew that I was potentially a part of something really amazing, but impossible to anticipate.

Q: Had you read the books or were you a fan before getting involved in the movie?

A: No, I actually had not heard of it, like a lot of people. Of course I have read the books since I’ve been in the films, but I’ve been taking them one book at a time, because I didn’t want to get ahead of the story as we were filming. At a certain point it kind of became clear that Mike Newton doesn’t really change too much throughout the series, so I’m in the middle of Breaking Dawn now.

Q: Speaking of which, do you have the same screaming-girl, crazed fan experiences that Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner do?

A: Oh no, it’s not the same for me as it is for those two. [Laughing] Not at all. There certainly do seem to be more girls that want to talk to me, in general, which is ironic because right before Twilight I got into a very serious committed relationship. So it’s just funny how life works. I was never really successful throughout my high school career with ladies, and then I was fortunate enough to be with this incredible girl now, but as soon as that happens a whole set of doors of possibility opened up.

Q: It’s been recently reported that Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart are officially a couple. How do they act on-set together?

A: [Laughing] It’s funny because when I first started to hear those reports, initially when that whole thing kinda started, I didn’t really believe it, I thought it was kind of weird. Frankly how they act on set can be interpreted a lot of different ways. To me it always seemed more like a brother/sister relationship– not to make it sound weird or anything. When you work on films, you get really close to people and sometimes it’s just difficult interpret how they act around each other and what that means. But you know, they’re both my buddies and wish them nothing but the best.

To read the rest of his interview, click on the link above.

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New Moon Press Conference: The Volturi Interview

Movies Online and IESB.net has posted the transcript of the interview with the Volturi members – Dakota Fanning, Michael Sheen, Jamie Campbell Bower and Cameron Bright – during the New Moon Press Conference. The cast talked about their characters, joining the Twilight cast, meeting the fans and their other movie projects. Here is an excerpt of their interview:

Q: Dakota, as such a fan of this series, what were the highlights of playing Jane?

Dakota: I think the highlight of playing Jane was getting to wear that costume and having the red contact lenses. I was really excited about that, and getting to play an evil character.

Q: Do you get to do more in Eclipse?

Dakota: It’s about the same. I’m still not very much in the movie.

Q: What did you think when you saw yourself for the first time with the red lenses in?

Dakota: It’s really scary. I think it makes anyone look automatically evil. It was really fun. You get used to them, after a while. You can see pretty good, but it’s still kind of weird.

Q: Michael, did it take you a while to come up with your voice in the film, or was that an instant thought when you read the script?

Michael: No, it was from Stephenie in the book. She describes Aro as having a voice like feathers, so that made me think about what would it sound like, if someone had a voice like feathers. And then, as I was starting to play around with it, I reminded myself a little bit of the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine. And then, I was also thinking about characters from when I was a kid watching stuff that really freaked me out, and the Blue Meanie really freaked me out. So did the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I liked the idea of a character who, on the surface, appears to be very friendly and thinks of himself as just being a sentimental old fool, a romantic at heart, but then he wants to eat your eyes. That was where Aro came from.

Q: Jamie, can you describe what the Volturi are?

Jamie: We are basically the vampire government. We’re there to keep all the vampires in check. People keep describing us as evil. I wouldn’t say we’re evil necessarily. We’re the government, and not everybody likes the government, which is fine. Without us, it would turn into complete vampire anarchy. And, we’re there to keep the Cullens in check, in particular.

Michael: It’s quite thrilling to have Dakota Fanning call you “master.”

Q: Cameron, can you talk about your character and your relationship to Dakota?

Cameron: Me and Dakota are the henchmen, and Dakota is the most feared out of all the Volturi. She’s the one with the worst power. We do what they say. For me, as Alec, I’m the only one that isn’t quite afraid of Jane, but I still am. I’m not afraid to say what I want, where everybody else is always watching their words, as far the henchmen go. Jane just looks at them and they just shut up and don’t say anything. We’re brother and sister. We don’t fight at all, or else I’d be in trouble.

Q: Jamie, how would you compare joining the Harry Potter phenomenon with the Twilight phenomenon?

Jamie: The Twilight phenomenon is relatively young cinematically, so there’s still a lot of growth there to go and there’s still a lot of connections to be made between cast and crew, whereas with Potter they’ve been going for 10 years now. It’s a machine. You go in, you do your thing and then you go on. With this, there’s a lot more finding out about everything and a lot more exploration to do, in general.

Q: What are each of your special powers? If you had a special power, in real life, what would you like it to be?

Cameron: Alec’s special power is that he cuts off people’s senses. And, the special power I’d want in the real world would be to have any special power I wanted.

Dakota: Jane’s special power is that she can just look at someone and cause them pain. And, if I could have any power, it would be to read people’s thoughts.

Jamie: Caius doesn’t have a power. Take from that what you will. And, if I had a power in real life, it would probably be something like the power of flight. That would be cool, just to get from A to B much quicker than walking everywhere. It would be much faster.

Michael: Aro’s power is to be able to read people’s thoughts by touching them. And, in real life, I would like to have the power to always look like I’m three centimeters to the right of where I actually am. I’m doing it now. I actually do have that power.

To read the rest of the interview, click on the links above.

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The humans of Twilight

Ten Twilight sites were given the privilege to talk to the “humans” of Twilight namely Anna Kendrick, Mike Welch, Justin Chon and Christian Serratos about the Twilight Saga and Filming New Moon. Here is an excerpt of their interview:

Q:  In New Moon you have a kind of love triangle going on.  I’m curious to see how that ended up playing out for you.
M: There are a couple of different love triangles there.  There’s obviously the one between Bella and Jacob and Edward that Mike is trying to squeeze into.  More of a love rectangle.  And I guess there’s the one between Mike and Jessica and Bella.  You know, Jessica likes Mike.  Mike likes Bella.  Everybody likes Bella. And it sort of doesn’t turn out great for Mike or Jessica.  A lot of this is very indicative of high school heart ache in general, but it’s sort of heightened with these supernatural characters.
Q:  Both of you have a background in theatre.  I wanted to know how that has helped you with your roles for Twilight and New Moon?
A: Well on a logistical note, there was a scene when Jessica and Bella go to the movies, when we were shooting that outside there were like hundreds of girls standing and watching as we shot it.  It was just a nice tool to have experience in front of a live audience.  It seems like a silly comparison, but honestly it helped to kind of block out the fact that all these fans were watching us and to try to just focus on the scene and ignore the fact that they’re all kind of videotaping us from the side lines.

Q: What was your favorite scene to shoot?
Mike: My favorite scene by far was the kind of three way date that happened between Mike and Bella and Jacob.  That horribly awkward moment when Mike asks Bella out to the movies and she tries to turn it into a group thing and then it ends up being the worst case scenario which is that that three way thing.  You know, I’m sure it was certainly not a lot of fun for Mike to go through.  I mean, I can relate, as I’m sure a lot of us can, but it was a lot of fun to do.
Anna: And I would have to say that there is a scene where Jessica and Bella go to the movies.  That was fun because Jessica really likes to talk about herself and Bella is really depressed.  She’s not saying much.  We were just kind of trying to do it all in one take, and Chris told me to just keep talking until we came to a natural stop.  So I stopped and just kind of monologued as flighty, silly Jessica which was a blast.
Q: Does having different directors and different visions for different movies cause any confusion for how you should play your character?
Mike: I think that the directors that we’ve had are very different in terms of style and process, but there seems to be a singular vision in terms of our characters.  Everyone seems to be pretty unanimous about it, and that basically is that we are there to add levity to the franchise and to just represent normalcy in Bella’s life.  Represent  just kind of a real high school experience to give the story some grounding so that people are able to believe the more supernatural fantasy elements.

To read more of their interview, head over to Twilight Lexicon.

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A conversation with the humans

They may not usually have the attention but the company of Mike Welch, Anna Kendrick, Justin Chon and Christian Serratos plays an important role in keeping Twilight heroine Bella Swan glued to her human roots. In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Anna, Christian, Justin and Mike talked about going back to New Moon, being part of the Twilight Saga and many more. Here is an excerpt:

Unlike Twilight, which was shot in Portland, you shot New Moon in Vancouver. What was that like?

Justin: The weather’s actually been better here. Portland was very, very, very cold and rainy. It’s a little bit nicer here.

Anna: One of the freaky things about shooting New Moon in a different location than Portland was the re-creation of things, like the high school parking lot. It was like déjà vu because we were in a different country but they completely recreated the parking lot from the school we shot at before.

You also got a new director. What was it like working with Chris Weisz?

Michael: Chris was really great. Catherine [Hardwicke] was wonderful too, but they’re just totally different in terms of their style and their process. And I think that as a result, you’re going to end up with a film that just feels very different. I think that Chris made more of a conscious effort to have a visual cohesiveness in terms of how the film is going to look and feel with the vampires, the werewolves and the humans. Visually, it’s more stylistic. And as far as the way he likes to work on set, he’s just very calm and very clear-headed and intelligent. He knows what he wants and puts a lot into the preparation so by the time we get to the set it’s all sort of mapped out for us.

Christian: He’s really awesome. He’s very well-organized, well-spoken, fun and carefree – simultaneously. It’s incredible.

If you weren’t playing humans, which would you prefer to play: a vampire or a werewolf?

Anna: I would personally rather be a werewolf since they seem to get to have a lot more fun. The vampires are very cool, but they have to be very calm and collected all the time. The werewolves get to let loose a little bit more.

Michael: I’d much rather play a vampire. Being a vampire would be cool, I think, for the first 100 years or so. It’d be fun to be able to play because vampires are just too cool; they’re just sexy and interesting and complicated.

Christian: I’d play a wolf. I’d play Leah, ’cause she’s sassy.

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