Peter Facinelli Mentions Playing Rob’s Dad in “Twilight” Films

MH: You’re so young and Carlisle’s very old, this patriarch with gravitas. Was playing an older, wiser character a challenge for you?
PF: Well, when I first read the roll, I was like how am I gonna make this guy who’s like 350 years old but at the same time in appearance, he’s twenty-three.
In the books, he’s twenty-three so he has a young appearance with an old soul. Because I’m young, I thought, “How am I gonna be the leader of this family looking so young?” I don’t know how I’m gonna be Rob Pattinson’s dad, you know? When we hang out, I can be his older brother but physically it was a challenge to say, ‘I have to be the father figure.’
So what I did to create the character was, I looked at Carlisle and I did a little bit of history on the last 350 years of his life and what was going on in those times. I kind of gave myself a little history lesson and mapped out his character and his journey through those 350 years and then I felt like, ‘Okay, I’m bringing that knowledge to the screen whether it appears or not, I have that knowledge inside. Then, just making sure he has the leadership qualities and his speech patterns are a little slower and he’s a little more still than a character like Coop, who runs around like he just drank four cans of Red Bull.

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