Catherine Hardwicke knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed on to direct the big-screen adaptation of "Twilight," the first installment in author Stephenie Meyer's bestselling young adult franchise about everygirl Bella Swan and her vampire beau Edward Cullen. The filmmaker had turned up to see the author on an L.A.-area stop on her 2007 book tour and witnessed firsthand the near hysteria the books inspire among legions of largely young, largely female readers.
All Meyer had to do was say the name "Edward," Hardwicke said, and the room would erupt in screams.
But the prospect of translating the story -- in which Bella finds the unlikeliest of soul mates after moving to small-town Washington for her junior year of high school -- was intriguing to Hardwicke for its bigger themes about the perils of first love and the turmoil of adolescence, all told from its heroine's point of view.
Specifically, she said, she wanted to try to capture the power of Meyer's "obsessive prose."
"I appreciate that time as a time of extreme turmoil," Hardwicke said. "Your body changes, you can kiss a boy, you can kiss a girl, you can drive a car, you can drink. There's so much drama. It's when you discover who you are. I liked just being drawn into this world, and I wanted to see how I could create that on film."
Hardwicke might be in her early 50s, but she radiates a creative boho spark more common to a recent college grad. Her Venice Beach home has a gorgeous funky aesthetic, a sort of radical second-hand chic. These days, her coffee table is covered with magazines, many of their covers touting the upcoming premiere of "Twilight," her fourth feature, which begins showing at theaters across the country at midnight tonight.
A former production designer, Hardwicke's filmography is centered around teenagers: She remains best known for her wrenching 2003 directorial debut "Thirteen," a tiny indie production about a nice girl who goes off the rails at the onset of adolescence that garnered Holly Hunter a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a single mom desperate to save her daughter from herself.
Two subsequent films, "Lords of Dogtown" and "The Nativity Story," failed to generate the same kind of stir, but "Twilight" has more stir than many filmmakers ever encounter. It's been hailed as the heir to the "Harry Potter" phenomenon, though the four books in Meyer's series, which has sold about 17 million copies worldwide, represents only a fraction of J.K. Rowling's wizard chronicles.
