The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was probably going to be the biggest film of Rachelle Lefevre’s entire career.
Not the best film, mind you. After all, if you looked back on your life and realised that its defining highpoint involved playing a grumpy lady vampire in a terrible kid’s film alongside a man with a face like stern twig, you’d probably consider your entire time on Earth to be a catastrophic failure. But despite that, Eclipse was going to be Rachelle Lefevere’s biggest film.
But it won’t be now – she’s been replaced with Bryce Dallas Howard. Rachelle Lefevre’s reaction? Blind fury.
With the possible exception of Taylor Lautner, who seems to have gracefully accepted the fact that his obituary will probably read ‘That Boy Who Stood Next To Robert Pattinson In A Film Once Dies’, the cast of Twilight have worked out that if they don’t make as many other films as they possibly can, they’ll be forever doomed to spend the rest of their lives morbidly posing for photographs with flabby divorcees at godawful Twilight conventions in places like Idaho. Idaho, for crying out loud.
That’s why Kristen Stewart is making a biopic about a woman with unfortunate hair, why Robert Pattinson keeps making dreary films about Salvador Dali, and why Rachelle Lefevre – who plays Victoria in the Twilight saga – recently signed up for ten days filming Barney’s Version with Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman. Except in her case, making another film got her sacked and replaced with Bryce Dallas Howard.
At first it seemed like Rachelle Lefevre’s sacking would pass without much fuss – presumably because there aren’t too many teenage girls who spent their schooltime working out what their signature would look like if they ever got married to Rachelle Lefevre – but then it happened. Rachelle Lefevre decided to speak out about it. And then speak out about it some more. And some more. And then a bit more. We’d run out of internet if we tried to reprint her entire statement, in fact, so here are the choice cuts:
?I was stunned by Summit's decision to recast the role of Victoria for ?Eclipse.” … I am greatly saddened that I will not get to complete my portrayal of Victoria for the ?Twilight? audience. This is a story, a theatrical journey and a character that I truly love and about which I am very passionate… I am hurt deeply by Summit's surprising decision to move on without me.”
That’s very kind of her, to say that only wants to star in Eclipse for the Twilight fans. Not for the money or the fame or the fact that she gets a wicked death scene at the end – she wanted to do it for the fans. The same fans who’d watch a Twilight film even if it only starred Robert Pattinson and some badly-inflated balloon animals. She’s all heart, that one.
Summit, incidentally, says that Rachelle Lefevre got the boot because she didn’t actually tell anyone that she was making Barney’s Version, and her time spent rehearsing and filming that movie would have trampled on some important Eclipse location work.
But regardless of where the blame lies, the day of the Eclipse premiere will still be a sad one for Rachelle Lefevre. She’ll be watching Bryce Dallas Howard get variously ignored, brushed aside and physically assaulted by the media purely because she doesn’t happen to be Robert Pattinson, and she’ll be thinking “That could have been me”. How heartbreaking.
Julias says
So spot-on, as usual, Stuart Heritage (you have the coolest name in the world, I swear). Apparently, R Lefevre and Twilight deserved each other. Someone with a good head on their shoulders would have said “good riddance.”
In these warped, godforsaken times, people would rather be popular than have an actual acting career.
Sunny says
Money; can’t omit that IS the real situation in this franchise. Besides the popularity aspect, The Cash really is King. Acting, art? A rather unimportant entity for this story line.
bellaB says
Summit has already shown what they really like – the CRUEL stuff:
1. Catherine Hardwicke out
2. Rachelle Lefevre out
3. Slade in
4. What next to RUIN IT ALL?
Shall we just go for another producer? Twilight-actors, c’mon, let’s go and get the REAL VOLTURI – the SUMMIT! They are untrustworthy, cruel, hard, selfish, inconsiderate – and senile at the end.