Catherine Hardwicke is of the opinion that Jacob Elordi and Jenna Ortega could be the perfect Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.
While the 68-year-old Twilight director celebrated the 15th anniversary of the supernatural teen romance with a “watch-along” of the 2008 flick on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, she seconded Horowitz’s opinion on who would be the perfect cast for the movie in an updated version(via People).
Horowitz reportedly asked Hardwicke, “Is Jacob Elordi Edward Cullen today?” adding, “Is Jenna Ortega…” and before he could end the sentence, the director affirmed, “Oh yeah, that would be perfect,” after which she proceeded to ask the host if he had watched Elordi’s latest film, Saltburn.
Hardwicke then spoke of the 26-year-old Elordi, saying, “I mean, he’s amazing,” adding, “He probably would be Edward today. Exactly.” She further affirmed Horowitz’s suggestion for Bella, stating, “I mean, of course, you just mentioned Jenna Ortega,” adding that the 21-year-old rising star is “amazing.”
People reported that as the podcast proceeded, the director touched upon the future of the Twilight franchise, which was essentially a movie adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s novels, which goes by the same names as the movie titles. Via Variety’s report in April, People affirms that a Twilight series is reportedly in the works at Lionsgate TV.
After directing the first five installments of the globally acclaimed saga, Hardwicke said she has not “actually found out exactly” what the new adaptation will look like. Additionally, she said, “I don’t know yet. Maybe they don’t even know,” According to People, she also noted that the recent WGA strike that upturned Hollywood for three months straight had lasting consequences on the development of the new series.
She then surprised us all by stating that she would like to steer the series in a direction that would allow it to go away from its original habitat. She stated, “For me, it would be fun to do Twilight in outer space,” adding, “I would be ecstatic to do that, something totally different.”
With the progression of the podcast, Hardwicke revealed that a surprise Twilight reunion took place when she and Kristen Steward crashed Robert Pattinson’s birthday, but not at the same time. She states of the incident, “Strangely enough, I ended up … I went to Rob’s birthday party recently,” adding, “I kinda crashed with my friend Toni Collette, who had just done a movie with him.”
She continued, “We had a fun thing, and then Kristen crashed it, too. That was just a few months ago, and it was just like, ‘Oh my God!’ We all hugged each other — like, this is so crazy and cool.” She further reiterated that Stewart, 33, was astonished to see her there as well.
She said, “When Kristen walked into Rob’s birthday, she’s like, ‘Catherine? Rob’s birthday? What’s going on?’ I go, ‘I kinda crashed it with Toni.’ And she goes, ‘Well I crashed it, too.’ ”
Hardwicke reiterated what happened when Steward, who Pattinson dated for four years during the saga filming, reached the party. She explained that Stewart “rang the bell at the gate” and checked if it was “cool” for her to come, and “of course” Pattinson welcomed her. She added about the actor, “He’s such a lovely person.”