Team-Twilight interviewed Noel Fisher this week, as part of "New Face Friday". Noel plays Vladimir of Romanian Coven, and in this interview, he talks about his experience on Breaking Dawn, Part 2, palling around with Stephenie Meyer, what he goes fanboy crazy for and more!
Check it out below:
It’s been a really good year for you professionally, with playing a great character on Shameless, and then the role of Cotton Top on Hatfields & McCoys. What made you pick a 3000 year old grumpy vampire? Why did you want that role?
I actually booked Twilight before Shameless or Hatfields & McCoys, but obviously the Twilight franchise is in a world of its own, a class of its own. It’s really really different from anything else I’ve ever done. And that’s something that I try and do with my parts, kind of pick parts that are really different from one another and I’m also just a huge geek at heart, too. I love vampire stuff, I love fantasy/sci-fi, and all that kind of stuff so it’s right up my alley. That was another lucky thing. I get to play like a 3000 year old bad-ass vampire. That’s awesome!You filmed Hatfields & McCoys in Romania and you played a Romanian vampire inBreaking Dawn. Did you feel a special bond with the country when you were there filming?I don’t know, I basically thought it was a really funny coincidence that I was going there just a few months after Twilight wrapped. I thought that was quite funny. We shot near Vlad the Impaler’s actual castle, which isn’t really a castle anymore. It’s basically a bunch of rubble now, but some of the drivers in Romania were telling us that just a few miles from where we were was a pile of rubble that was actually Vlad the Impaler’s old spot. So I thought that was kind of cool.Can you tell us what it was like when you saw yourself fully decked out in your vampire gear with the red eyes for the first time?In a word: Amazing. I thought that all the artistic stuff we did with this movie, in terms of wardrobe and makeup and hair and everything, really I thought it was very top notch. There’s something really special and transformative to put on all these really specific pieces of clothing and to have the eyes in, it really helped me with that very regal kind of attitude that the Romanians have from being that kind of royal group.What was it like joining such an established franchise? Did you feel like the new kid on set?I actually found it really welcoming. I think it was really wonderful because it was a really big group of newbies coming on. Basically, one of the really nice things about the set was that all the Cullens, and all the people that have been doing this for a long time, all they way up the ladder to Wyck, to everyone, everyone was very welcoming. It created a very warm kind of atmosphere on set, so that was kind of my experience, so I had a blast.What was it like filming Breaking Dawn so close to home in Vancouver?Actually, Twilight was the very first job that I’ve ever gone back to Vancouver to shoot since I moved to Los Angeles, which was really surprising. It was really cool. The hotel that we stayed at was literally three blocks away from my sister’s apartment. It was really wonderful to get to go home and see my sister, to see my family, to run around to all the little restaurants and cafes that I used to hang out at. It was really fun.If you could create your own fan site, what would it be about? What are you really passionate about?Oh, man, there’s a lot of stuff. I’m kind of all over the place with it. It depends on what I am currently obsessed with. Like right now I am really obsessed with a Showtime series called Homeland that I’m just totally falling for. Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead. Anything that’s fantasy is right up my alley. So anything involving that stuff would be pretty sweet. Breaking Bad is not exactly fantasy, but is another one that I’m pretty into.Could you share some of your jokes, pranks or experiences with you and Guri [Weinberg] on the set?The story that comes to mind a lot of the time for me, I was doing a scene where I had to — well, it’s not so much a prank because it wasn’t done on purpose, but I had a scene where I had to kind of squat down for a moment and it was right at the end of the day, and it was literally the last shot of the day and we were trying to wrap and everything. I remember they called, “Rolling!” and then, “Action!” and we started doing our stuff, and I do a squat and I just heard this big rip. I had basically ripped the back of my pants completely open, so everybody got a nice shot of my underwear. So I had to go over to the wardrobe lady and she literally sewed it back up while I was still wearing the pants in between takes. I had to run back out and get it one more time, and it ripped again. That was a good moment!Did you and Guri try to work together to come up with the Romanian accent, or how did you guys work to make a cohesive Romanian coven?We both sat down with Bill. That was something — I was just constantly impressed with Bill Condon because he sat down with all of the new covens and new vampires, including the Romanians, and he basically just sat us down and asked us what were we thinking? What were our thoughts on the characters? It was obviously something that we both wanted was to be able to do the accent and to do that in a way that was going to be really interesting and kind of unique. He was totally down for that and we got this dialect coach and came up with this — not a modern Romanian accent because they are so old, it had to be like an amalgamation of ancient Romanion and a lot of influence from the surrounding areas around Romania because they’d been around for so long and you add all of that into it. So we just created our own unique dialect. That was one of the really cool parts about doing the character, something that really helped me fall into the character, getting to put on that accent. I’m really glad that we got to do that.When you learned that you were cast, who were you most excited to get to work with on this project?Well, off the top, I’ve been a big fan of Bill Condon’s for a while. But the thing that’s really interesting about these movies is that you kind of know everyone. Like Peter Facinelli — his show on Showtime, Nurse Jackie, is great. There are so many aspects like Kristen’s been doing movies for obviously a very long time. And she’s been fantastic in everything she’s done, so like it’s really nice to get to work with people who are really experienced. It’s like a learning opportunity.Marlane [Barnes, in a previous interview] told us that she was really impressed with your dancing skills in the flash mob that you guys did. Can you tell us a bit about your experience that day?That was orchestrated by some of the new vampires and Toni Trucks rounded us up and brought us into a back room and, they had a little stereo and played this song and they walked us through the steps. We all just sort of fumbled around it until we sort of got it, and then tried to keep it hidden from the people we were going to serve.We hear you’ve got the moves.I’m glad somebody thinks so!Did you have any conversations with Stephenie about your character?Not a lot, actually. I had a few brief talks with her about the history and stuff, but it actually was brought up in the Illustrated Guide that she came out with a little while ago. But no for the most part, Stephenie and I talked a lot about — one of our favorite authors is Orson Scott Card and we had this big discussion. Actually, I think Summit is doing one of his books into a movie. It’s called Ender’s Game, one of my all time favorite books ever, and also one of Stephenie’s. We had a lot of conversations about book recommendations. In fact, she still owes me a book list of stuff that I’m supposed to read.Are you trying out for a part in Ender’s Game?No, I’m too old for anything in that, I think. But I’m super stoked about that. It’s going to be awesome. It’s such a good story, I can’t wait to see the movie.
