Daniel Cudmore: Lexicon New Moon Interview

We recently had the opportunity to interview Daniel Cudmore who plays Felix in The Twilight Saga; New Moon. Dan has appeared in a number of films, but is probably most widely recognized for his portrayal of Colossus in the X-Men movies.

How would you characterize the New Moon audition process?
It was very unexpected for me. I had auditioned for one character and was called about a call-back for another character which somehow I had no idea about. Fortunately, I couldn’t make the call-back and had a chance to get it right and put it on tape. A week later I got the good news.

How would you characterize the make-up and costuming process?  Some of the actors have had difficulty with the contacts.  Did you find them difficult to use?  Did the costume help you find the character?
I found the whole process a lot of fun, I wear contacts normally so it wasn’t uncomfortable. The whole costumes when put together were so cool, and really helped with getting right into that character. It also helped that my skin was pretty much the same color as a vampire’s after a nice Vancouver winter.

How did you and the other Volturi and Guard cast members build your character relationships?
Charlie Bewley and I met at a costume fitting and got together a few days later for a coffee to chat about New Moon   We both have a very similar background and outlook on life so we got along right away, which helped with our characters since they’ve had quite a long working relationship and haven’t gotten sick of each other yet.

How did you prepare for the role of Felix?  Did you focus on a specific trait or idea as you prepared? You have talked about building back story for Felix. Can you give us some insight into that process and how you translated that to your scenes?
I definitely worked on this character for a while, I really liked his animalistic side and how good he is at what he does. I also worked out that his rage comes from jealousy, not having a power like the rest in the coven and Aro’s fascination with Edward fuels it even more. It was a fun character to play.

When we interviewed Charlie Bewley, he spoke about how your characters have a tag-team type of relationship in the movie. How would you describe Felix and Demetri?
Haha, very much bad cop good cop, except I really never interrogate, just rip vampires apart. It’s a great system they have and it’s worked for a while now.

We understand that you have done a lot of stunt work in the past. What is the coolest/most challenging stunt you have ever done, and did you enjoy your stunt work in New Moon?
I have been fortunate enough to do a lot of stunt work which has been a lot of fun and helped a lot with the fight scene on New Moon. I think the coolest stunt so far is this fight scene. It’s great to be the actor and getting to do all the fight choreography helps with the performance and really makes me feel a part of this character. I can’t wait for people to see it, JJ Makaro and his team put together a really cool fight and Simon Burnett (Rob Pattinson’s double) did such a great job.

What parts of filming did you find challenging (i.e. filming in front of a green screen, the makeup)? What was most enjoyable?
I think the shoot went really smoothly, the only thing would have to be the costume being really warm, so the long days of action work were a little sweaty. But it was all worth it once we got to film in Italy, it was gorgeous over there.

You had, no doubt, seen footage of the Twilight fan mania at some time. You started out filming in relatively low-key Vancouver, and went on to film in Italy. Did you expect so many fans? How would you characterize the experience of filming in Italy?
Haha, I’ve never seen anything like that. I thought they would have no idea who I was, but wow I was wrong. Filming there was such a great experience, I’m very fortunate to get to do things like that, with a great cast and crew.

Many of your roles have been in fantasy-based films. Do you prefer that genre? What is your dream role? What are some of your upcoming projects? Are you looking forward to the other Twilight Saga films?
I think it’s a very cool genre since all the characters are so imaginative. I’ve always wanted to be in a Bond film, I’m a huge fan of 007 and one of these days I’d like to get in one. I’m not locked into anything yet, there are some things in the works but the next film starts so soon, I might not have time for anything else.

Do you have anything more that you’d like to share with Twilight fans?
Just that it’s so great to be attached to this project because the fans are so passionate about it which is great to see, and I hope everyone enjoys New Moon as much as I did to film it.