Meet the newest vampire on the ‘Twilight’ block
When child star and avid “Twilight” fan Dakota Fanning signed on to play one of the dreaded Volturi in “New Moon,” the second film in the blockbuster vampire franchise, she knew what she was looking forward to most: wearing those creepy red contact lenses. “I was really excited about that,” the 15-year-old says. “It makes anyone look automatically kind of evil.”
For newcomers, the color of the eyes of “Twilight” vampires denote what kind of blood they feed on — golden for animal blood, red for human. Scary as they are, they couldn’t be terribly comfortable, right? “You get used to it after awhile,” Fanning says. “You can see pretty good, but it’s still kind of weird.”
Fanning’s vampire, Jane, is one of the most feared in the series by Stephenie Meyer. Jane is an angelic-looking young lady with the power to cause people intense pain just by looking at them. “It was fun to get to play a kind of feared character,” Fanning admits. “She uses her power not for good, which was another thing that was interesting to me.” The idea of having some kind of special ability piqued her interest, as well. “If I could have any power, it would be to read people’s thoughts,” she says.
Dakota and Kristen, BFFs
Fanning particularly became close with series star Kristen Stewart, which was convenient because the two young actresses would end up spending much of the last year together, co-starring in “New Moon” and “Eclipse,” as well as the upcoming “Runaways,” about the all-girl punk band where Joan Jett got her start. “It was really great making ‘the Runaways’ with her after ‘New Moon,’” Fanning says. “We became really good friends and really close throughout all the experiences we’ve had this year. I couldn’t ask for a better person to do three movies in a row with than her.”