by Andy Gibbons

We’ve already heard from Nikki Reed and Kellan Lutz so now it’s the turn of Alice Cullen, actress Ashley Greene, and badboy vampire Riley, Aussie newcomer Xavier Samuel, to spill the beans on Twilight: Eclipse.

Ashley, can you tell me what Eclipse has in store for Alice?

Ashley – People will kind of get to see the vampire side of Alice in this film. In the previous two you are well aware that Alice is a vampire but she’s very positive and optimistic and she kind of has a heart of gold and you haven’t really seen her get dangerous or dark so in this film me and (director) David Slade worked to pull out some darker elements of Alice.

Xavier, how does Riley fit into the story?

Xavier – When you first meet Riley he’s just a young guy, full of promise but then he gets his humanity snatched away from him and gets kinda mixed up in this Lady Macbeth type relationship where he’s being manipulated to seek revenge. Then he’s busy trying to control this bloodthirsty newborn vampire army.

This is your first Twilight film – did you have any idea when you were letting yourself in for?

Xavier – (laughs) I kind of knew that it was severely popular and I’d seen it on the back of buses, that sort of stuff. But I was just kind of privileged to be involved in a story that reaches so any people. It’s been a really wonderful experience for me.

Is it more fun to play the bad guy?

Xavier – Absolutely, yeah. But also he’s kind of a complex bad guy which I really dig – that it’s not just this two dimensional kind of character, there’s a lot going on.

Ashley, we learn more about Alice in this film and she gets plenty of action – is this the book you’ve been waiting to make?

Ashley – I was certainly excited about it. There’s always certain things on each film that I get excited about; we have kind of this ability to take these characters and grow with them and add elements and layers onto these characters which is kinda nice. So yeah, it was definitely sort of amped up for Eclipse and then I heard David Slade was signed and I kind of knew instantly that it would be a different sort of film. If you’ve seen 30 Days Of Night or Hard Candy you know he has a niche for pulling out the darker side of things so yeah, it was super exciting.

This is the third Twilight film and you’ve had a different director each time – what did David bring to the movie?

Xavier – I think he brings a sort of fierce intelligence and maturity to the film. He’s got a really firm grip on the dark side of the film but he’s paying tribute to the love triangle and keeping that intact as well so I don’t think you could pick a better man for the job – he’s really phenomenal. And also Art Jones, who edited the film, did an amazing job. All these chase sequences are so exhilarating and it just sort of snaps along. I think they are a wonderful team.

The fans of Twilight are as hardcore as I’ve seen – can that level of fandemonium ever get in the way of the work?

Ashley – There are certainly precautions that you have to take but no, it doesn’t really interfere too much. The fans have been pretty great about keeping their distance. They stay the whole work day and camp out and when we get done with work we’ll go and say hello. It’s not a big issue.

Xavier, there’s a great sequence where we see Riley rising out of a lake with his newborn army – just how cold was that?

Xavier – (laughs) It was freezing actually and we had to reshoot it as well. But it was cool; I was attached to this wire that was kind of pulling me out ‘cos it’s hard to look graceful coming out of the water. But I didn’t drown or anything so I’m kinda thankful.

After Eclipse we have one more book to go – is it in the back of your minds that the end may be in sight?

Ashley – Yeah, people keep asking that but it’s certainly not coming to an end yet. We are filming the last book but it’s going to be split into two films, we’ll have Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Breaking Dawn Part 2, and they probably won’t be done for another two years. So I think until probably the last day of filming on Breaking Dawn Part 2 it won’t be too hard, it won’t be too emotional.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will be released across the UK on the 9^th July.