Henry Cavill Says It "Would Have Been Cool" to Star in TWILIGHT If He'd Known He Was the Author's First Choice
The Twilight books and movies were a huge phenomenon in pop culture. The four novels followed the human teen girl Bella, and her love interest, the vampire Edward. There was a whole love triangle thing with a werewolf named Jacob, and plenty of major wars between vampire covens and their enemies. The novels were near Harry Potter status with midnight releases, and once the films were cast, they sold out shows, created mobs of fans, and launched the stars who played the roles to stardom.
When the casting was happening, the author of the books, Stephanie Meyer, was asked plenty who she would like to see in the roles. While she didn’t have the final say, as she had signed over the rights to the studio, she expressed that Henry Cavill was who she pictured in the role of Edward.
When making the rounds promoting the Netflix sequel Enola Holmes 2, Cavill sat down with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and he was asked if he was bummed not to get the role in the Twilight films. He said:
"Not at all because I didn't know about the movie. I didn't know about them wanting to cast me and the internet wasn't quite the tool that it is now and so I only found out afterwards. I was like, 'Oh okay, that would have been cool.'"
We all know that the role went to Robert Pattinson, who now is also a leading man in the DCEU, like Cavill, who went on to add:
"Essentially, I got close to a bunch of stuff and didn't get it, but it's funny that people think that's a bad thing. In Hollywood — or in the acting industry — everyone's trying to get a role and they're not necessarily getting them. And so, to get an opportunity to be in the limelight by missing out on the big roles is actually a good thing as opposed to a bad thing. And I count my lucky stars for each one of those."
Whatever he didn’t get doesn’t really matter at this point considering that Cavill’s career has turned out pretty great. But I bet he also would have been a pretty good Edward Cullen.