Giving ‘Twilight’ its props

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We are just hours from the biggest vampire movie explosion since… well, last year, when the first movie based on Stephanie Meyer’s quartet of books about teenage mortal Bella and her chaste-but-yearning relationship with vampire Edward. Legions of Twi-whatevers are lining up outside theaters, and I don’t even want to think about what I’d agree to do in order to get a piece of the merchandising action.

I’ve seen my share of vampires. I watched plenty of Count von Count on Sesame Street. I’ve logged about a zillion viewings of The Lost Boys, both because of Jason Patric and the fact that it played on cable nearly constantly back in the day. I’ve never loved Kirsten Dunst more than in Interview with the Vampire, and I waited out the Keanu Reeves scenes in Bram Stoker’s Dracula until Gary Oldman came on screen again. From Dusk Till Dawn, Dark Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer — I’ve seen them all, at least in parts, and I love me some True Blood (in no small part because of my devotion to Alan Ball). I even loved the vampire puppet musical in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  (Speaking of, why do the programming people for virtually every cable channel not have things things stacked up like cordwood on their schedules all weekend?)

But to say that I am not Twilight’s target demographic is a gross understatement, no matter how many stories I read about grown-ups getting engrossed in this ‘tween/teen heaven. But watching the way Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in particular (if I paid attention, I’d probably be on Team Edward) have handled themselves while promoting this thing, I almost wish I were.

For my money, any young actor whose face is plastered across millions of teenage girls’ chests and can still refer to himself as “douchey” is worth paying attention to. Watching him gamely handle a thoroughly bored David Letterman last night and just give up and confirm all the tabloid rumors to Matt Lauer this morning on the Today Show while you know he probably can’t walk any street freely indicates (a) he’s gotten some fantastic prepping from his publicist and the studio, and (b) he probably doesn’t take it all too seriously. Even Kristen Stewart’s “Bite me” response to questions about her love life seems both more understandable and real than people who find incredible success and spend a lot of time being sourpuss complainers about the fame. I’m lookin’ at you, Evangeline Lilly.

It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll fare after more filming, two additional movies and a couple more years of being continually hunted. At least Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were young enough to be able to be sheltered from the madness when Harry Potter first hit. Normally I have little sympathy for the tough spot actors find themselves in when they’re in something that blows up big — there’s the acting and then there’s the payday, and where the twain meet it isn’t always pretty. But it has to be disorienting when something blows up this insanely big. There are plenty of examples to follow — those who have handled it fairly well and kept on with the work, and plenty of others who, well, haven’t.

Godspeed, Twilighters. I won’t be darkening the theater doorway soon, but hang tough.