Robert Pattinson’s Twilight was infamous for a number of reasons, the actor himself launching his career off the back of the controversial film. But he was not the Brit Stephenie Meyer had in mind when her work was picked up for live-action adaptation. Henry Cavill, who has hardly ever starred in a critically bad film, was very close to committing to the $3.4 billion franchise that would have spelled career suicide for him. Twilight‘s author, Stephenie Meyer, on the other hand, famously claimed that the role of Edward Cullen, her male protagonist, was envisioned with Cavill in mind. But the series director Catherine Hardwicke, it seems, had other plans in mind.
Henry Cavill has always raced against time to secure hard-hitting career-defining roles in Hollywood but in return, the element of time has not been kind to the actor. He has made a habit of either arriving too early or too late for the role. It happened with Cavill’s audition for James Bond in Casino Royale – it was down to him and Daniel Craig, but Cavill was deemed unsuitable because he was too young. It is happening again with 007 as now he is too old for the role, despite being the most-voted candidate for the role. With Twilight, it was more of the same.
Stephenie Meyer began penning her first Twilight novel in 2003. Cavill was 20 at the time. In 2007, after Summit Entertainment put the series in development, the author, in her blog, wrote:
Despite Cavill being Meyer’s first choice for the role, he was deemed too old to play Edward, the perpetual 17-year-old vampire. In his stead, Robert Pattinson, who walked into the audition looking jetlagged, wearing a stained T-shirt, with his hair all over the place won over Hardwicke’s heart. Something about his cold and sharp eyes, the typical grungy look and pallor struck the director, mesmerizing her the first time they met. Cavill stood no chance.
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