Going into the interview, Peter Facinelli stood out from just about anyone I’ve spoken with. As my wife Lindsay and I approached him at GalaxyCon St. Louis, I could tell Lindsay was nervous. She’s a massive Twilight fan, and meeting the man who portrayed Carlisle made it difficult for her to keep from shaking. Yet, Peter has a unique ability to put someone completely at ease. He’s so calming and kind that within seconds all her nerves melted away. That warmth carried into our conversation as we talked about being present with fans, how Cons are like “Christmas and Halloween all put together,” and the iconic baseball scene.
Have you done GalaxyCon before? And if so, how many years have you been a guest?
Oh man, I don’t know. I never really counted them. They’ve been so fun to do, you know? Because when we’re in movies, you’re kind of like in a bubble. So you don’t really get to interact with fans much. To be able to be boots on the ground and talk to fans. And you know, have them come together. Not just Twilight (fans), but there are fans of lots of different things. Sometimes, stuff that I don’t think anybody has seen. And they’re like, ‘Oh, I love this movie,’ and I’m like, ‘You saw that?’ You know, so it’s kind of fun to interact with fans that have been watching over the years.
Have you had a favorite fan interaction anytime today or last night?
Yeah. All of them. Because when you’re talking to fans, you’re forced to be present, you know? So it’s such a beautiful thing to have a conversation with somebody and be present with this person. And then another person comes, and you’re present with them. And then another person comes, and you’re present with them. So just the fact that I get to be present with people and engage with them and have beautiful conversations. It’s hard to pick one.
So we’ve been to San Diego Comic-Con a few times. Every time we go there, from our first year to the most recent year, they always say Twilight is the reason that this has blown up. Over and over again, we hear that from fans.
I do remember the first Comic Con that we went to back then. It was incredible. I mean, you could hear the roar of the arena of fans. And it felt like the building was shaking with the screams. It was pretty incredible.
That’s exactly what I wanted to ask about! What was it like being a part of the fandom that is the reason Cons became so massive and maybe the reason why some of these Cons exist?
That’s very kind of you. I can’t take full credit. Star Trek probably is why they exist.
That’s true. Shouts to Star Trek
Yeah, shouts to Star Trek for sure. But you know, I’ve seen Lord of the Rings guys and I fanboy out on them. I remember coming to one, and Lee Majors was at his table, and I went over, and I turned into a 12-year-old boy because I grew up with The Bionic Man and The Fall Guy. And so it’s fun for me to look around and see people that I admire and friends that I’ve worked with. To see all the fun booths and the movie paraphernalia and the energy in the room. People like dressing up and the excitement. It feels like Christmas and Halloween all put together. Look, there’s Michael Myers right there (pointing out an eerily accurate Michael Myers cosplay), and he’s staring at me right now. Don’t look him in the eye! Don’t look him in the eye!
That’s one horror movie I know I would never survive (Halloween). So really quick one last question! When you were filming the iconic baseball scene in the first movie, did you know how cool and how popular that was going to be in the moment? And what was it like?
Well, to be honest, it was the first three days of filming, and it was kind of a chaotic shitshow. Like, we were all kind of trying to find our characters. It was kind of raining. To shoot that scene, it had to be cloudy, not sunny, and it couldn’t be raining too hard, right?
That’s a balance!
Yeah! So, for three days, the sun would come out, and we’d have to stop filming. Then it would start raining too hard, and we’d have to stop filming. And then it was raining lightly, and our makeup was running. So, after three days of that, we all would go home at night thinking, oh, God, we’ve screwed this up. No one’s going to watch this movie. Oh, my God. And the lesson in that is you never know.
Because a lot of times on movie sets you’re going, ‘This is the greatest. Everybody’s having the best time. We’re getting great stuff,’ and then the movie comes and goes. And then there’s times like this one where that’s probably one of my favorite scenes. But I never would have known it shooting it. Like, shooting it was so, you know, it was chaos and stuff. But the director had a plan. You know, Catherine Hardwicke really had a plan, and she put that thing together. I mean, honestly, I give her a lot of credit for setting the tone of those movies because she did a really great job.
