Twilight director reveals who she would cast as Bella and Edward in a reboot

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke revealed who she thinks would be the “perfect” replacements for the lead roles in a reboot of the cult classic saga.

Kristen Stewart, 33, and Robert Pattinson, 37, originally starred as Bella Swan and Edward Cullen in the fantasy romance films based on the popular vampire book series by Stephanie Meyer.

During a recent “Watchalong” episode on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hardwicke agreed that Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega and Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi “would be perfect” as Bella and Edward, should there ever be a reboot.

“I mean, he’s amazing. He probably would be Edward today,” Hardwicke said of the 26-year-old Australian actor.

“I do think there’s a lot of really cool young actors today. Of course, you just mentioned Jenna Ortega, she’s amazing,” she added.

Last week, Ortega, 21, exited the forthcoming Scream 7 after her co-star Melissa Barrera was fired due to comments she made about Israel-Palestine on social media.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hardwicke revealed that Pattinson was nearly passed up for the leading role in the 2008 film because the studio was sceptical about his physical attributes.

Recalling the British actor’s first auditions, Hardwicke remembered Pattinson, at the time, “had black bangs for hair and was kind of out of shape because he was hanging out at the pub all the time”.

Hardwicke shared that Pattinson and Stewart had “come over to my house”, where they filmed “fun auditions”. “I thought ‘it works not just in person, but it works on screen.’ I had to be sure. Of course in person I just got carried away, but you have to be sure – does it really translate [to the screen]?” the director said.

“I sent it to Summit [Entertainment, the studio financing the movie] and he went over to meet them,” Hardwicke recounted. “They called me back and go, ‘Do you think you can make this guy look good?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Did you see his cheekbones? We’re doing a makeover on the hair and everything and he’s going to start working out and he’s going to be gorgeous.’

“But they didn’t believe it at first. He walked over there with a stained shirt… It was Rob.”

The director confirmed that Pattinson eventually beat out three other final candidates for the role: Ben Barnes, Shiloh Fernandez and Jackson Rathbone, the latter of whom went on to portray Jasper in the series.

Twilight celebrated its 15th anniversary a few days ago, on 18 November.