Michael Sheen Talks About Working With Younger Cast on 'New Moon'

EW's Popwatch has a short interview with Volturi leader Michael Sheen:

Ashley spoke very highly of her time working with you.

She’s lovely. They all were very nice but they kind of treated me like an elderly uncle. They were all on their best behavior when they are around me. I just want to be down with the kids but that doesn’t really work out to well.

You have great command of the scene with the Volturi and you can tell that those other actors had great respect for you.

It helps coming into something where they all know each other and have already done one movie together. They’ve also been involved in the whole phenomenon together so I think they’ve bonded a lot. So when you’re coming in to do a big scene like the one we did in the film, it helps if the character you are playing is higher status than the other ones. At least it gives you a bit more confidence. So that certainly helped.

What do you think audiences are responding to with Twilight?

I think it’s a whole combination of things coming together. Especially for adolescent girls and also for older audiences, Stephenie [Meyer] takes the incredibly powerful experiences you have as a teenager and treats them absolutely fearlessly and gives them the respect they deserve. The first book and film are about the first time you fall in love. And New Moon is all about the first time your heart is broken. These are some of the most powerful experiences you can have in your life, regardless of your age. And there is a tendency to kind of trivialize those things as you get older, to kind of be patronizing about those things. And Stephenie treats them absolutely seriously. She also, very cleverly in a way, said that the vampires are stunningly gorgeous as a way to lure their prey. That’s very clever because in casting the film you have very beautiful people who are very good as well.

Read the rest at EW.