New Face Friday: Guri Weinberg talks 'Breaking Dawn - Part 2'

Twilightish hosted this week's "New Face Friday" interview, which introduces Guri Weinberg, who portrays Stefan of Romanian Coven!

Question: What did you think of your costume and your makeup the very first time you saw yourself fully decked out as your character?

Guri: Well I loved it. I mean it was a little freaky but I loved it. It was exactly what Michael, who is the head wardrobe guy wanted when we first met and we put on the wardrobe. The eyes were a little weird, cause I don’t wear contact lenses, so it took them half an hour to put them in and then it took me another good half an hour to see through them. So when I actually figured out what I looked like, I was pretty happy with it.

Question: You had never worn contacts before? That’s got to be a crazy situation.

Guri: Ya, it was awful. But because we had a whole department of people that handled the contacts and put them in our eyes. The first two weeks it would drive them crazy because it would take them a good half hour to put them in my eyes and they said you know we are never going to get through this and I said well you should try to be me.

Question: You had posted a lot on your blog about working on set with cast and your experiences from the set and since then. What kind of fan interaction have you had a result of that?

Guri: What kind of fan interaction did I what?

Question: I am just curious what kind of fan interaction you have had as a result. A lot of people don’t get into stories about the set. That’s kind of given us an inside look. So I was just curious if you had any fan reaction from that.

Guri: I always get, oh hey no disrespect but Go Fuck Yourself and it’s like how is that no disrespect?

Question: On your blog you made a mention that you got the twitter account and bought the blog and you started all the social media after you were cast. So do you think that Social Media has changed acting in a sense because of the way that you can interact with fans?

Guri: Well it hasn’t changed acting it’s more changed how actors interact with fans. It almost feels like a second job which I kinda don’t appreciate cause I don’t get paid for it. But it’s been really cool cause, joking aside, cause you get to know the fans, the fans get to know you. What I found most great about it is I got to know more about my character then I ever knew just reading the book, from the fans.

Question: What sort of things did you learn?

Guri: I’ve learned his past about losing his family, and this is where it wasn’t even in the book. Which is interesting because that’s part of one of the things that I came up with before I found out all of the rest of that information. As an actor you gotta take a character and sorta build their past, present, and how their past affected them in todays time. How they react to things. So it was very interesting to hear fans perspective, about my character and how they felt about it. And knowing about what we did in the movie makes me giggle cause a lot of it they got right and some that they didn’t.

Question: Did you do a lot of that character building before hand with Noel Fisher or did you build on your own and tell him “Hey this is what I came up with?”

Guri: I don’t want to speak for Noel, but I will speak for myself, I did it by myself at first. Noel and I met briefly in wardrobe fitting in LA, and then in October we had to go to Baton Rogue to camera, lighting tests, makeup tests, you know with Bill Condon, with everyone else. And so what happened was we had a meeting regarding our character. He wanted to hear what our ideas were and he wanted to let us know what his ideas were. And out of that meeting, really all three of us talked about what we wanted. We flushed it out and that’s how we came to be on the same page.

Question: We saw a still with you guys sitting around the campfire and it looks like they are looking at you and Noel as Vladimir, will we get to see some of that backstory looked upon? Like his war story that he’s talking about at the campfire?

Guri: I don’t know how much I am allowed to reveal, but Im just gonna put it more on the wide scope where we all talked about our experiences. You are not going to be able to pull it out of me.

Question: How much did you have to give Mackenzie in the swear jar. You are the one that kinda started it with her. How much did you have to give her?

Guri: Well I was lucky enough in the spirit that I didn’t have as much money as Rob and Kristen did, so she let me get away with it. But I was the one that told her to start a swear jar cause I felt that I was not a big help. She’s like a ninja, the way she comes up you don’t hear her. So at first you think it’s just us adults and then Mackenzie is there looking at you with that really disappointed look.

Question: How much did she charge?

Guri: I am not quite sure, because she never charged me. You are gonna have to ask her about that?

Question: We’ll have to save that for the next time we talk to her.

Guri: Exactly

Question: I know that you did a couple of conventions and then you ended up at Comic Con with all the rest of the new vampires. How was the experience been acting face to face with the fans? Have you found it overwhelming at all?

Guri: Ya it’s very overwhelming. Especially you think you aren't in the whole saga, no one knows who I am, they haven’t seen the whole movie yet, and it’s the opposite because they do feel that they know who you are because of the character that you are playing. They are so warm and open with you. It’s kind of overwhelming to step into that and, well you know I am just going to say love, cause it’s like “You haven’t seen the movie, give it a second, you might not like me so much.” It’s been great. I love it. I love the fans. I think Twilight fans are probably the most special fans that I have ever encountered.

Question: Ah, well thank you.

Guri: No, well thank you. I didn’t do anything, you guys did it.

Question: Do you think that you could spend thousands of years with Noel Fisher like Vladimir and

Stefan do together?

Guri: I don’t think I can spend thousands of years with myself, let alone someone else for thousands of

years. So no. The answer to that is no.

Question: How did you wrap your head around someone that lived for like 3000 years or something else like that? Not only that, everyone else is coming to defend the Cullens and Renesmee and you have someone who is just really bent on revenge more then anything else. How do you build that character that is so old and his this burning desire to have revenge?

Guri: For me it was actually a pretty interesting road to get there. When I got the part, well before I got the part I did some research about how did Romanians live 3000 years ago and then I found out that the Romans were in charge 3000 years ago and everyone hated the Romans because they were viscious. So my whole thing was, when he was a human, when he fought the romans, he lost his family to the Romans, he died, and became a vampire. That’s why the Romanians took over. For him it was a show of power against the Romans, but next thing you know the Volturi come again, and to him it’s like the Romans again. The Romans destroyed everything he had once again. For him it happened twice in a row. Anyone can understand when you have had everything that you love taken away from you, it’s just instinctual to have rage and want revenge. So it consumes you.

Question: Did you get a chance to talk to Stephanie Meyer about the history or the background of your character at all?

Guri: Stephenie and I never talked about that. Stephenie and I when we were hanging out and talking, we talked and joked about everything else. The cool thing about Stephenie is that she trusted the actors and Bill Condon to do our jobs. And our jobs as professionals is to come up with the characters, understand she wrote and bring it to life.