“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke was nervous about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s on-set connection because Stewart was only 17 when they shot the first film. In an interview on “The Big Hit Show” podcast, Hardwicke explained, “I could tell they had a lot of chemistry, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ I thought, Kristen was 17. I don’t want to get in some illegal things.” Hardwicke continued, “So I remember I told Rob, ‘By the way, Kristen is 17. In our country, it’s illegal to have a sexual…’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, okay, whatever.'” The “Twilight” director added that Pattinson “was so into” his audition kissing scene with Stewart that “he fell off the bed.”
After kissing Pattinson during his audition, Stewart told The New Yorker that she knew he was the one to play Edward Cullen. Stewart said, “It was so clear who worked. I was literally just, like …” The “Spencer” star described Pattinson’s acting as an “intellectual approach that was combined with ‘I don’t give a f**k about this, but I’m going to make this sing.'”
A Summit Entertainment executive told Fandom that Pattinson was smitten with Stewart. Nancy Kirkpatrick said the actor told her, “I was in love with Kristen from the very first time I saw her in the audition.” But Kirkpatrick said, after Hardwicke warned Pattinson about Stewart’s age, the actor told her, “‘I had to wait.’ That was a very real relationship.”