Twilight Examiner got to interview Erik Odom, who portrays Peter the nomad in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 for this week’s New Face Friday.
Enjoy this exclusive new interview with Odom, along with this never-before-seen character art and quote from the film!
Peter, the vampire who was spared by his best friend Jasper Hale during the vicious Southern Wars, wanders the continent with his mate Charlotte and descends upon Forks, Washington in the Cullen family’s time of need.
In Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Bella notes, “The nomads Rosalie and Emmett sent were even more unpredictable -- especially Peter, who had fought alongside Jasper as a newborn.”
Erik Odom has quickly become a Twilight fan favorite and uses his Twitter and Facebook pages to communicate with fans on a regular basis.
You’ll see him next in Rogue Machine Theater's A Bright New Boise, which kicks off next weekend in Los Angeles!
Q: When you walked into Comic-Con [at the end of the Breaking Dawn – Part 2 cast panel], you got some of the biggest shouts out of all the newcomers. How did that feel?
Erik: It was unbelievable. The only thing I could say it compared to was the Part 1
premiere when I walked down the red carpet. It’s just, you try to
prepare yourself for it as much as you can, you know maybe the response
will be big but maybe it won’t, you try to be ready for everything … but
when it hits you, your knees buckle. I mean my knees buckled. It’s one
of the craziest, craziest things. But the fanbase has always been so
enthusiastic, so passionate. And I think part of it has always been a
combination of people loving the character Peter and just also
being on Twitter and being on Facebook and having fans reach out, just
trying to interact as much as possible and including the fans as much as you can, you know. Because the fans are what make the fandom what it is.
Q: People love Peter, but they also love Peter
with Charlotte. Their relationship’s really special, and I know that
that’s something we hope to see on-screen, and I was wondering how far
in advance did you meet Valorie [Curry], and you know make it into a
rhythm with her and feel like you could portray that on-screen?
Erik: What was great about Valorie, even
more so than a lot of the other vampires who I met once we went to
Louisiana together, I actually – I didn’t know her personally, but we
had a lot of mutual friends in Los Angeles – so through the small world
of Facebook, we were able to link up after the whole casting
announcement came up, and we actually grabbed lunch before we even
started filming, before we left. So, we went to a place in L.A., sat
down for about two hours, and after the initial twenty minutes of ‘Oh my
God, I can’t believe I’m a part of this; Oh my God I can’t believe I’m a
part of this!’ After twenty minutes of us geeking out together about
how cool it was, we really dug in and talked about Peter and Charlotte’s
relationship and their relationship to the other vampires. You know,
because the covens are such an interesting thing, they call the nomads a
coven but really it’s Peter and Charlotte versus the world. You know,
so we talked about really diving into the relationship, back to Maria
[in Eclipse] and back to the newborn army and their relationship
with Alice and Jasper, and it was just nice that by the time we got to
Louisiana together, we already had the seeds of this relationship
planted, you know? It was really nice. I love Valorie.
Q: How much of that backstory do you think will make it onto the film?
Erik: That’s tough because there’s … we shot
a lot of stuff, and you just don’t know how much will make it into the
movie because there’s so many vampires that are in there. So, you take
what you can from the script, and you take what you can from Stephenie
[Meyer]’s universe and what’s in the book, and you try to fill up your
piece and your moments on-screen as much as you can. So, I’m not sure
exactly how much’ll actually end up in the film, but Val and I really
worked to get across as much as we could in the limited time that we
had.
Q: Did you get to talk to Stephenie about the backstory of Peter too?
Erik: Yeah, well what’s great is Stephenie’s
a producer on the film, so she was on set every day, and she was
insanely busy so I picked my spots with her. There were a couple of
times, you know, especially at the beginning where if I saw an
opportunity to go over and have a word with her just shortly I would. We
would talk a little bit about it, just to fill in the blanks, because
Peter he’s a big character in the book … So, it’s just kind of trying to
fill in those blanks and also I had read Midnight Sun before we started filming and wanted to connect Midnight Sun
over to the main four books and create this cohesive character, you
know, that is linked together and is consistent with what she intended
when she wrote Peter.
Q: Do you think you felt more pressure for
getting Peter right for the fans because he is such a popular character
than some of the other castmembers that might not have a character that
is so well-loved? There’s so much fanfiction for Peter and Charlotte.
The fanbase is so big for Peter and Charlotte.
Erik: Yeah, well I think it’s an interesting
thing. I don’t know that ‘pressure’ is necessarily the right word,
because pressure has somewhat of a negative connotation to it. I think
more of a responsibility to the fans because of the expectations
that they have for the character. And responsibility is more like
opportunity, so you embrace it and really, you do your due diligence,
you do your character work, you try to integrate parts of yourself and
make it your own, and hopefully you make something that is true to what
the fans want. So, there was a lot of going back through and just
making sure that all the research was there. And then also, a big thing
for me and what I found most interesting about the character was his
relationship to Jasper, which is such a big thing, so going back over
and watching the films over again and watching what Jackson [Rathbone]
did with the character. You know, the thing about Jasper is he had the
military thing, you know, very proper posture and always shoulders
pulled back, very official, and what’s interesting is knowing he and
Peter were best friends and then they split off when Peter and Charlotte
got away … so what I thought about was what has Peter gone through
since they split. You know, he was Jasper’s right hand man, and then
once he went off on his own what did living off the land and being a
nomad, how did that change him? So, I wanted to try and find ways to
make him connected to Jasper while also showing the change that has
occurred since they’ve been apart from each other. So, it was a fun
thing to explore, I hope it resonates with the fans. I hope they’re able
to pick up on what I was trying to do there. I think it is interesting
with the character.
Q: Do you know how soon we’re going to get a good close-up image of Peter and Charlotte?
Erik: I don’t. I’m waiting as much as you guys are. I’m dying to see us, but I’m not sure.
Q: There was that long shot from the trailer …
Erik: Yeah, there’s a long shot where you
can pick out my belt buckle a little bit more than you can pick out the
rest of my costume but I’m there! So, hopefully something’ll come
through before too long, but I think they’re working on it. I think
we’ll see it before too long.
Q: When you found out you were cast in this – I
know you had known Jack Morrissey, so you had a relationship with Bill
Condon – but aside from him, who were you most excited to get to work
with in this film?
Erik: Oh, there’s a lot of them for a lot of
different reasons. For one, I’m a huge fan of Kristen [Stewart]’s. I
think Kristen is just a really great performer. Michael Sheen’s another
one. There were little moments here and there with
Michael where it was just fun to watch him work, you know? And really
just watching these actors at the top of their game just going back and
forth and sparring with each other during these scenes really going for
it. There are a lot of them. I’d say Kristen, Michael, Noel Fisher’s
another guy who I was a big fan of before we started filming, and he’s
really great. And then to be completely honest, I’ve probably been
crushing on Ashley Greene since day one, so that was … it was nice to
work with her too, she’s a sweetheart.
Q: You’re from the south, and you’re playing Peter who’s southern … will he have any kind of accent?
Erik: Well, I have my normal accent … What’s
nice about Peter is there are so many parallel things with me. You
know, I’m a southern boy – I’m from Virginia – and I moved around a lot
as a kid, I’m a nomad. There’s a lot of things that connect with him …
Whether it’s wardrobe or the way he carries himself, it’s all very
southern. I think it’ll definitely come across. There’s some really nice
touches that Michael Wilkinson the costume designer put on us that I
think fans are really going to like it. I know I did. I had a freak-out
moment the first time I saw myself all decked out.
Q: What kinds of stuff are you auditioning for now? I mean, a lot of fans are like putting you out there for Finnick [in Catching Fire] or these leads in these other YA series; what kind of stuff are you going for at the moment?
Erik: What’s great about being a part of the [Twilight] universe is that it really is like a family. The Twilight family really embraces you and they do, they throw your name in the hat for all sorts of stuff, and I was a huge fan of The Hunger Games
… So, I was really flattered for the fans to mention me in the same
league as these other actors that were up for Finnick. But it’s just
been auditioning for a lot of different things. You know, I’m also
working on something that I’m helping to create. There’s a movie I can’t
say too much about but hopefully we’re going to shoot next summer. It’s
a fun little project that has some interesting Twilight
connections as far as the people that are working on it, and that’s
pretty much all I can say now, but it’s going to be really exciting. But
yeah it’s just going out there and continuing to audition and build
relationships and keep working.
Q: What’s been the biggest surprise or the
biggest eye-opening moment for you on this journey, in all the
interactions you’ve had – from the premiere to Comic-Con – what really
stood out to you the most?
Erik: What’s been probably the biggest thing
to me is going to these events - and you know whether it’s the premiere
or whether it’s Comic-Con, or whether it’s a party here or a party
there related to Twilight - is you see the same fans. You see the
real, real hardcore fans. You see them over and over again at these
events, and it’s so many people that you think, there’s no way that
you’re going to remember these people by name or remember your
relationship with them, but I’ve made so many relationships with these
fans that you know I come to these events now and I know them on a
first-name basis, I’m asking them how their kids are doing, ya know?
It’s a really funny thing to be able to develop these personal
relationships in the middle of this humongous thing.
Q: Do you think Twitter plays a big part in that too?
Erik: Twitter definitely does. There’s a
really big community on there and I try to be as active as I can, just
because I understand what it’s like to be such a huge fan of something
and so passionate about something, and I think it goes back to that
responsibility thing of knowing it's bigger than just Twilight.
It’s a community of these people who are so passionate about the same
thing, and I think that’s so great. I want to encourage that as much as
possible, so for me if that means jumping on and talking to all the fans
and building relationships with them, it’s as much if not more fun for
me to get to meet people so excited about something. You see a lot of
cynicism and people really getting negative towards Twilight and the fans and everything, and I just don’t get it! Everybody should be this passionate about something. You know, so for this fandom it happens to be Twilight, and I think it’s great.
Q: You said that you know what it’s like to be a big fan of something; what is that thing that you love?
Erik: Oh, I’m a huge basketball fan.
And I apologize to all of my Twitter followers, I’m a huge basketball
fan and I’m a huge college football fan, and I know it doesn’t
necessarily run right alongside Twilight, so I have a lot of followers who are huge Twilight
fans and during football season and basketball season I kill ‘em with
my basketball and football tweets … I’m not playing to the right
audience with that at all! Except for you Amanda!
Amanda: I was about to say, you know better.
Patty: I’m from Kentucky, so you can tweet about Kentucky all you want.
Erik: There ya go. Kentucky, yeah! I know
the Wildcats. I don’t know the University of Kentucky … I used to live
in Kentucky, when I was ten I used to live right there in Fort Campbell,
Kentucky right on the border by Clarksville, Tennessee. That’s a big
part of where my accent came from, actually. Gave me a big accent during
my formative years there!
Q: What’s your dream project?
Erik: Oh… I don’t even know that’s such a
hard question … What is so lucky - and this is such a cornball answer,
but it’s really true – is I have a group of directors that are on the
bucket list, and there’s a bunch of them … but one of the guys that is
near the top of that list is Bill. So, I don’t know, I’m still kind of
riding off this high of oh my God, this is the first major film … and
this is a major, major, major film … that I've ever worked on. This is
my first huge feature, and the fact that it's with Bill Condon, the fact
that I can cross that name off my list of directors, and that’s the
first one that I’m really crossing off, it’s pretty incredible.
