"It feels like family."
According to Alex Meraz, a 25-year-old who appears in the upcoming third installment of the blockbuster Twilight series, the actors who play the so-called “Wolf Pack”—a group of American Indian shape-shifters—became as close as their characters almost as soon as they arrived on set. “We really rely on each other for support,” he said. “It feels like family.” His co-stars Tinsel Korey, 30, Chaske Spencer, 35, and Julia Jones, 29, agreed: “I felt, kind of instantly, like we had so much in common,” Jones said. Being in an intensely-hyped Twilight flick, she explained, “is a really specific kind of experience. We all feel we’re in the same boat.”
"She's the caretaker."
Brooklyn-based Spencer admitted that he auditioned for “pretty much all of the [Quileute] roles” before finally being cast as pack leader Sam. “I looked in the book, and saw how big a part it was, and was like, ‘I’ll take it,’” he said. Korey’s character, Emily, is Sam’s fiancée: A Makah Indian, she’s actually not able to transition into a wolf. “She’s sort of the caretaker,” Korey noted, before adding that she doesn’t feel she missed out as a result of playing the only non-magical member of the pack. “I don’t feel any different from them. The wolf scenes are all CGI anyway!”
“This is you. This is your role.”
The
Eclipse casting directors weren’t the first to think Jones, a part-time model and Columbia graduate, was perfect for the part of Leah, the only female wolf. “One of my closest friends read the books before the first movie came out,” she reported, “and she always said, ‘This is going to be you. This is your role.’” Nevertheless, Jones admits to some trepidation about taking on
Twilight. “Everybody has an idea of who the character is in their mind, and there’s no way I’m going to be that person for everyone,” she explained. “I just have to hope that the way I bring Leah to life wins people over.”
"I was bagging groceries."
Acting wasn’t Meraz’s first ambition: At eighteen, he left his home in Mesa, Arizona to join the circus. “Literally,” he insisted. “I was a dancer, and I wanted to train to be in Cirque de Soleil.” Things didn’t exactly go according to plan. “I moved to San Francisco, thinking that I would take the city by storm; cut to two weeks later, and I’m bagging groceries at Whole Foods.” Luckily, it wasn’t long before a chance meeting with an older actor who ultimately became his mentor led to a small role in Terrence Malick’s
The New World. In
Eclipse he plays Paul, a friend of Taylor Lautner’s Jacob. “On
New Moon, we could hang out—go to dinner, go to the gym. But by the time we shot this movie, we had to do all this secret text messaging, and meet at abandoned restaurants. It was pretty bizarre, but I’m proud of him.”
“A new Native America.”
Spencer said he’s played his share of historical American Indian characters—what he half-jokingly called “the leather and feather” parts. “What’s cool about New Moon,” he explained, “is that we’re in a contemporary setting.” Korey agreed: “I think it’s important for people to know that there is a Native American community that’s very vibrant, and very now. We’re sort of like a new Native America.”
