The topic of Bella's long-criticized status as a passive heroine (as written by Meyer) was just one of many Movieline dove into recently in an extensive chat with Rosenberg. (Also discussed: That honeymoon! That vastly improved acting! The virtually unfilmable events of 2012's Breaking Dawn - Part 2!) Arguably the best-crafted installment in the series, Breaking Dawn - Part 1, which opened to $139.5 million last weekend and earned the #5 spot among the all-time biggest openings of all time, marks a promising beginning of the end for the Summit franchise; meanwhile, Rosenberg turns her attentions to fostering stronger roles for women through her production company and upcoming television projects. Read on for more.
[Spoilers follow]
Critics have long criticized Bella Swan for being a passive heroine, but in Breaking Dawn she most clearly seems to take charge of her life. Did you see this installment as an opportunity to show her as more of an active agent in her own destiny?
I think in the film versions of Bella, she's fairly proactive even from the start. That's at least been one of my primary objectives, to shift her into that role.
In Breaking Dawn that's more obvious, because she seems to finally know and assert what she wants -- in her choice of men, in her sexuality. It feels like she becomes a woman in Breaking Dawn, whether it's through these specific rites of passage -- the wedding, the loss of virginity, the childbirth. By the time we get to the honeymoon, she wants to have sex, and she's the aggressor.
I've always loved that about Bella. She's desirous. She pursues Edward in that way; he's the one who saying, "No, let's hold off..." I love that. In some ways, this is terrible perhaps, it gives girls permission to own that for themselves as well.
Along those lines, Breaking Dawn is fairly intense for the younger side of the fandom; by now, girls who were tweens and younger teens at the start of the franchise have grown up with it, but you've got sex and the desire of sex and the repercussions of sex -- pregnancy, even the debate over abortion... are these rather intense subjects for young girls to take in?
Yeah, there's a lot to process. I think particularly in this movie, which is PG-13 -- it's really PG-13. Parents really need to think about it, if [their children] are not 13. It's a very grown up movie, a grown up story with some very adult themes. It's emotionally complex, and, you know, it's about a marriage. Marriage is hard work!
I'm somewhere in the middle of the Twilight demographic so these themes aren't so alien to me as they might be to younger viewers - but then, aren't these kids watching shows like Teen Mom on MTV anyway?
Maybe, and as you said earlier I think they've grown up with this character and they've gone through her journey to get here. And the movie in itself is a journey; she begins as a girl leaving home for the first time and getting married. The wedding, as you said, is a rite of passage. Having sex for the first time... you're sort of drawn into it and taken along on her journey.
Which scene did you find was most difficult to hammer into shape, or to get absolutely right as you were writing it?
There were a number of them, but some of the harder stuff was when Bella comes back and Jacob sees her for the first time, fully pregnant, then sits down with her to try and convince her not to go through with it. That was very, very hard; you're talking about really complex emotions and conveying Bella's point of view, Jacob's point of view... there was a lot going into that scene and those similar to it. Those took a number of different drafts.
In comparison to the previous films in the series, Breaking Dawn seems most subtle in its references to prior events or details from the book -- for example, it doesn't shove a reminder in our face of who Laurent was when his fate comes up in discussion at the wedding, and we don't get an over-explanation of why Rosalie is the one person who would help Bella defend her baby. Was that a deliberate choice?
That is why for a screenwriter to have really great collaborators is very valuable, because it's hard for me to separate myself from the material and initially I was putting all sorts of backstory in there. Then, as I start to get notes from the studio and the producers and Stephenie, and most importantly in that case, is Bill [Condon], because he is coming to it fresh. He's able to say, "You know, you don't need all of that -- the fans who know about it will get it, and the ones who have never read it, it won't matter." There are some nice surprises in the film for fans of the book; they're going to get the Laurent and Irina reference, but to anyone who hasn't read the book it just doesn't matter.
Even a brief callback, like Charlie looking curiously at the graduation caps collage in the Cullen house...
Yes! That wasn't in the book but it was a reference to the first movie.
Those sorts of things are fun for fans, and yet they're thankfully integrated into scenes without being hammered home.
Right -- well, that was a product of much honing, because I started by overexplaining a lot. [Laughs]
How was working with Bill different than your previous collaborations with Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz, and David Slade?
You know, all four of them have been wildly different in their processes, and I've been very fortunate that each one has been not only very talented but actually a nice person to work with. [Laughs] I actually personally like each one of them. And Bill, as with them all, was very different. Bill is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter himself, so my experience has been that he approaches everything as a storyteller. I don't want to in any way lesson my experience with the other directors, but Bill probably is one of the best creative collaborations of my career, which is saying a lot -- I've been doing this for two decades!
Why do you two work so well together?
He is a screenwriter and speaks the same language. His process is very similar to mine. So he was able to create the room for me to do my best work, as best as I could, and to support it and be there as a sounding board; he had countless ideas. He's woven into every line and scene of that screenplay, and yet he gave me ownership of it, he allowed me to bring everything I could to it. That's a very unique gift as a director. It really is the ideal collaboration. It's something every screenwriter would hope for.
I also think it's apparent, from watching Breaking Dawn, that Bill was quite good working with his actors.
Very clearly. I think they're better than they've ever been.
What's your perspective on why the cast has progressed through the past three films until now?
I think it starts before they even get on set; not to have everything be about me, but it starts with his work with me. This story is very much character drama. It's not the big, epic storytelling of New Moon and Eclipse. This is a really personal, intimate story about a girl's coming of age, about a marriage. Hence, I was actually looking forward to writing the fifth movie because it's all cool action and new characters. I was like, "How the hell am I going to do this?" Bill was actually attracted to this one because he loves that kind of storytelling. I think in some ways it goes back to his Gods and Monsters days. So he just kept on pushing me to go deeper and deeper into the characters and their conflict, pulling back the layers, so before the actors come onboard he's already pushing me to really give them something to play. A lot of his work is just bringing me up, and then the actors get onstage and he's already embodied what he wants and needs from them, and can guide them in a really masterful way.
Let's talk honeymoon. Obviously I enjoyed what sexytime we saw within the PG-13 rating, but fans were hoping that somewhere out there was an R-rated version of the scene. The holy grail of Twilight fandom! How did you walk the line, even in conceiving the scene, in terms of how far you should go?
[Laughs] For me, the important aspect of that scene is the story of this consummation of this epic love story - the connection between them, the chemistry between them, the intensity is what delivers. Then it lands in Bill's lap, in his capable hands, to really shoot that and direct that in a way that delivers. He made a choice early on that I wrote toward, which was an idea of his, to play a lot of it in flashback. So it's very funny; they go to bed and the audience is going, "What?! That's it?" Then he plays back a lot of it in this really wonderful flashback moment. I thought that was great, it really gets you inside Bella's experience of the night.
You wrote Breaking Dawn - Part 2 a while back...
I wrote it at the same time I wrote Breaking Dawn!
Did you find that writing Part 2 was easier or more difficult than writing Part 1? You mentioned you were looking forward to some of the events that happen in the final part of the story -- what were they?
People ask what the hardest part of Part 1 was, and they assume it's going to be the birth scene, or the wedding scene, or the honeymoon scene. Those are just the big events -- they're so much easier than the small moments, the intimate moments, the emotionally complex moments. So for [Part 2], there's a lot going on. You have this impending conflict with the Volturi, you have this gathering of the defenders -- sort of like gathering the X-Men or the Avengers. The training. It's a lot that's happening, and all of the new characters were so much fun to write and imagine. I just love all that.
The moment I read Breaking Dawn, I thought, "How could anyone possibly film this?" The big battle scene, with all these intangible superpowers wafting back and forth...
Yeah! That was a challenge. That final sequence was definitely a challenge, but a lot of it is also... for me, I could choreograph it on the page, but I know anytime I write an action sequence I choreograph it on the page knowing that the only reason I do that is to convey the story of the action. I always know that the actual action is going to depend entirely on Bill, on the stunt choreographers, on the location, on all of these sets. I haven't seen that sequence cut together, I just saw it shot, so it's going to be a complete surprise to me.
Here's my brilliant segue into another one of your superpower-related projects: What hooked you on doing Jessica Jones, especially in the wake of the failed Wonder Woman series?
I think one of the major differences between Wonder Woman and Jessica Jones is that Wonder Woman is iconic and much better known, so you get into a lot of ridiculous expectations, like what's her costume going to look like? Well, nobody knows who Jessica Jones is, except for fangirls and boys. So we have more freedom to actually bring the character to the screen in a way with a lot fewer expectations. The other side of that is we'll have to earn fans as opposed to having them already in place, but I think there's also another element of Wonder Woman vs. Jessica Jones; I find Jessica Jones a much more interesting character to write for than Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is so noble and heroic, and I don't find that as interesting as one who's really damaged and flawed and has post-traumatic stress disorder. Her superpowers are kind of B-level, they're not all that great. [Laughs] I just find that much more interesting, you know? It's like she's not quite cutting it in the superhero world, she's a little too weird to be in the human world, so she ends up straddling both.
On a related note, what do you feel went wrong with Birds of Prey and what lessons do you take from that as you create this new superheroine series?
Well, I think one of the problems with Birds of Prey was there were too many cooks in that kitchen. The studio, the producers, the network, all had very different visions of what that should be. They should have just let Laeta Kalogridis control that. Instead they decided to try to get their hands in the mix. I think the best shows have one voice and one vision, or a team, whatever it is, and you have to defer to your talent. Laeta Kalogridis, more than most people, is certainly someone who can deliver when it comes to this genre. She was new to TV at the time... but that was a big mistake to me. Hand Laeta the reins and just let her go!
Your new series Penoza was just announced [last week]. Do you feel confident that you'll have that kind of creative control, post-Twilight?
I can sure try! [Laughs] It remains to be seen when we actually have a show on the air, or where Earthseed goes, which I'm also producing. There is nothing in this business that is entirely in one person's hands; the people that are paying for it have ultimate control, which makes sense. So it really depends on how much they trust their talent, and how much their talent lives up to that trust. You have to earn it. I think perhaps because I've been doing this for 20 years and between Twilight and Dexter I've proven myself somewhat, they'll be a little more inclined to trust me, but I have to live up to that. I have to really earn that.
The concept of Penoza, which is adapted from the Dutch series, sounds something like a Breaking Bad meets Mob Wives.
[Laughs] That's not bad! That's not a bad comparison. For me, it is a fantastic role for some fantastic actress for us to bring in from features, very much like Glenn Close in Damages or Kyra Sedgwick [in The Closer]. It gives them something really great to play, and this role is so complex. What I love about it is that it's not about the sins of the father; her husband, who is killed - yes, he was a criminal. But she was equally as guilty in that she let it happen. She stood by. She was complacent, she condoned it. And so it's the sin of the mother in that regard, and that's what I'm interested in exploring. I love that as a theme for women: Stop standing by! You've got to make stuff happen, you've got to create your own world because if you let other people do it, they're going to just screw you. So it's really about a woman taking the reins of her life, having been put in this position by her own complacency and now stepping up.
So, kind of like if Edie Falco's Carmela took over from Tony Soprano?
Exactly! It's a different tone, because she only did it because her family's lives were in danger. Carmela would do it for very different reasons; Carmela would do it because she likes her house and wants to keep all her shoes.
ABC seems an unusual home for a show like this.
I know! When they sent me the Dutch series, I watched it going, "Really? ABC wants to do this?" But as it turns out it was Paul Lee himself who aggressively pursued it. So he's very enthusiastic about it. And if you think about it, actually, network really is the place for it, because it's already been done on cable. The Sopranos and Breaking Bad have really covered this territory, so I think cable is at the moment played out. Doing it on network is a different world.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1 is in theaters now.
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[A portion of this interview appeared last week.]