Dailymail UK has a great article/interivew with Ashley Greene (aka Alice Cullen).
The actress on playing saintly vampire Alice Cullen, how she reacts to hysterical Twilight fans and why she’s no fashionista
Ashley Greene has a way of making everything seem easy. Effortlessly chic, she possesses a raw acting talent that seems as natural as breathing. She advanced from total obscurity to the cover of Vanity Fair with such little fuss it’s as if it was delivered to her on a platter.
She was a complete unknown two years ago when she landed the role of saintly vampire Alice Cullen in Twilight, the first in a series of films adapted from the best-selling novels by Stephenie Meyer, which has so far grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.
She reprises her role in the third instalment, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. At 23, Greene is poised to step up to the Hollywood A-list, and the world is about to start paying attention.
Tae kwon do, kick-boxing, baseball… I’m prepared for anything.
I never rely on luck to get where I want to be. My father taught me that good things happen to you when preparation meets opportunity, so nothing is ever left to chance. I believe in being prepared at all times. In 2007, when I landed the audition for the first Twilight movie, I made sure I knew Stephenie Meyer’s novel back to front and I had a firm handle on the character of Alice Cullen. For the baseball scene in Twilight I learned how to pitch convincingly by training with a professional coach for two weeks. For the new Twilight movie I’m involved in a few fight scenes, so I worked three days a week in Vancouver with a special team who taught me to kick-box. Having learnt tae kwon do in high school, I also worked on sharpening up my Korean martial-art skills. As ever, I was fully prepared.
I got my work ethic from the marines.
More specifically, my dad, who used to be a marine so he’s got incredibly strong discipline. Then he started his own concrete business, building it up from scratch. Like him, I can’t rest up for long before I feel the need to start grafting again. I like to take holidays, but rest is always more pleasurable after a long period of hard work.
After a few days of doing nothing, with my phone switched o ff, I feel I’ve recharged my batteries and I’m ready to dive back into work. It helps that I love what I do, but I’d like to think I’d have a strong work ethic whatever I was doing. I can’t think of anything more boring than being on permanent vacation. I can be skiing in some of the most beautiful places on Earth, but I can only take a few days of that and I’m so ready to get back to work and be creative again.
Education is never wasted.
Before I started acting I studied psychology at public high school – I didn’t get to be a psychologist, but those lessons have been invaluable to me. When I first moved to Hollywood at 17, I was naive and inexperienced. I had to quickly learn how to read people and how to empathise with them. I don’t have my Twilight character’s gift for premonition, but I rely heavily on my own intuition. Psychology has also been useful to me in terms of being able to read a script and get to grips with the personality of the character I’m playing. Education is never wasted.
When the going gets strange, embrace the strangeness.
When I started out as an actress I thought only about work. I never stopped to consider what it would be like to be famous. The Twilight movies attract extremely devoted fans. When they meet me their reactions are sometimes a little odd. Quite often they just stand in front of me and start crying and shaking. It was slightly terrifying at first, but I’ve learnt to accept it. So long as people are responding in a positive way, that’s a huge compliment to me and to the movies I’m in. Going through my fan mail is always a big pick-me-up, no matter how unusual the letters. I have a team that can be relied upon to filter out anything too strange. One thing that did get through was a car manual. I’m still trying to figure out why a guy would send me that in the post.
Never stop learning from the people you work with.
Robert Pattinson, who plays my adoptive brother in the Twilight films, has been one of my biggest inspirations. As a person, he’s not like anyone I’ve ever met in Hollywood, and as an actor he’s a complete natural. He has no ego. Everyone loves him, but he’s unaffected by that and never seems fazed by the attention that comes his way. He’s not changed a bit since I worked with him on the first Twilight movie. He’s a great night out if you tag along with him to a pub or bar. He’s not the nightclubbing, get-up-and-dance kind of guy, but during shooting we’ll join him back at his hotel, where he’ll get out his guitar and we’ll have a loud singalong.
Read more: Dailymail.co.uk
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