This November marks ten years since the final Twilight film hit theaters. A decade later, the mania around the vampire love story continues. As Robert Pattinson so eloquently stated recently, “It’s not even cool to be a [Twilight] hater anymore.” As even more audiences get hooked on how the lion fell in love with the lamb, Team Alice is still going strong, per Ashley Greene. In fact, many fans have referred to her character as their "gay awakening."
The star's lovable Alice Cullen had awesome precognitive abilities, a bubbly personality and was the object of affection of many queer kids, who skipped picking between Team Edward and Team Jacob for Team Alice. And given all the drama the vampire and werewolf put poor Bella Swan through, Alice would have objectively treated her like more of a queen if Stephenie Meyer had explored the storyline romantically.
With a decade between playing Alice in the franchise, Ashley Greene is set to host her own podcast, The Twilight Effect, which focuses on her experience working on the movies. While speaking to Insider about fans approaching her now, she shared her feelings about how her character has been received by gay fans:
I guess one thing that has changed is a lot of people have said that Alice was their gay awakening. … The first time someone told me, I cried. I was like, 'That's so incredible! You know the impact that Twilight had on people, but to kind of go that extra step and be able to allow people to be their true selves is really special.
Ashley Greene is all about Alice Cullen being a gay icon for the young women who initially found themselves attracted to the character aand recent fans getting hooked on the series. As the actress shared, she wouldn’t get approached about being part of people’s “gay awakening” when the movies first hit theaters but, these days, fans are more open about it. Greene said she can “fully recognize how and why” Alice has been that character for some.
Twilight has become one of many movies/television shows that LGBTQ+ people credit for helping them discover their sexual identities. Other examples are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Star Wars, Kill Bill and the The Last Airbender franchise. The common denominator seems to be a lot of hot people placed together, and the vampire franchise definitely has that two-fold. Greene also shared her reaction to the franchise still being relevant as well:
It's very cool to see your peers praising you for your work, even if it was done 10 years ago. It's neat to see. And we all knew that 'Twilight' was something special when we were part of this and we were releasing in theaters. But to see it be able to have this kind of traction 10 years later, it's very unexpected.
Sounds like not even Alice Cullen could have predicted the Twilight phenomenon would still be pulsating in 2022. Ashley Greene’s The Twilight Effect will certainly keep the conversation rolling, considering the actress will be reminiscing about the franchise with her best friend Melanie "Mel" Howe. She'll also be reuniting with some other castmates to talk about their experiences. The actress has already hinted at some “drama” on set at the time. And maybe she'll go even deeper into her character's new status among queer franchise devotees.
You can also look out for the actress in a number of upcoming movies including The Wrong Place and The Retirement Plan some time this year.
