Every so often we get a true pop culture phenomenon, and the Twilight franchise was certainly that. Based on the already incredibly popular book series of the same name, the films that starred Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner took things to another level when it came to the fascination surrounding the story of vampires, werewolves, and teenaged love triangles, making megastars out of many in the cast. Anna Kendrick was also featured in the movies, and her story about how her co-stars handled fans during that time is absolutely stressing me out!
What Anna Kendrick Said About How Her Twilight Co-Stars Dealt With Fans
It can be a shocking experience for any actor to go from obscurity to sudden fame, and maybe even more so when the project that’s made them famous is based on a book series that has as many fans as Twilight. Leads like Kristen Stewart have recalled things like her first paparazzi experience involving her getting caught “smoking a bowl,” and Taylor Lautner remembering how “insane” things got at one fan screening, but Anna Kendrick’s role as high schooler Jessica Stanley was a much smaller one which meant less fame-stress for the young star.
During a recent interview with Call Her Daddy, the Pitch Perfect lead was trying to explain how she’s kinda forgotten that she was in the beloved franchise, mostly because (as she’s previously said) she was a bit of a “bystander” when it came to the intense popularity and fandom surrounding the movies. But, she did get to see how stars like Stewart and Lautner dealt with the fans, as she said:
[I] had a front row seat, but was just on the outside of the madness of it, and I was really lucky to not be dealing with the eye of the storm, really. I think that a lot of the folks that were in the movie, even in the later movies where they’re playing — as long as you were a supernatural character, if you had one line, you couldn’t leave your hotel room. People were crazy, and people were criticizing [characters] like, ‘Oh, she had green eyes in the book,’ or whatever.
It’s hard enough for an actor to land a major gig like a book-to-screen adaptation of a novel series with millions of fans, but to then have the added pressure of having those fans seriously judge you just because they don’t think you look enough like your character is pretty rough.
Of course, it sounds like even if fans did enjoy what the actors were doing, it also led to some crazy situations, with Kendrick noting that most of those who portrayed the supernatural characters at the heart of the story simply stayed in their hotel rooms to avoid fan interactions. I like to avoid people on a good day, and I’m completely un-famous, so the level of anxiety which could be produced by being famous and constantly having folks want to interact would be off the charts! She continued:
I just didn’t have to deal with any of that, so it almost feels like I didn’t really have to run the gauntlet that most of the other people did. I just had to show up and say dumb, funny shit and just be like, ‘What are you guys talking about? You guys are fucking acting weird? OK, everybody’s really serious. Bye.’ That was the gig. It was awesome.
As the Oscar nominee noted, her Twilight character was mostly comedic relief, and never got deeply involved in any of the supernatural shenanigans that many of the other characters did. In 2025, which was the 20th anniversary of the first book’s release, Robert Pattinson opened up about how “mind-blowing” it is that the movies still have the die-hard fans that they do, and Kendrick’s part is, even now, well remembered for its lighthearted, quippy nature.
Though she’s also said before that filming the first movie was like surviving a “hostage situation” because of how grueling the weather was, she’s always been really thankful for how the job positively impacted her career, as well as the bulk of the experience she had working with the cast and crew. All that, and she never had to hide out because of the fans? It definitely sounds like this was an experience to remember.
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