Ayanna Berkshire (Cora in Twilight) Interview

The Pattinson Post recently interviewed Ayanna Berkshire, who played Cora, the waitress in Twilight.

Ayanna Berkshire: I was working in Portland, Oregon as an actress at the time. WhenTwilight was looking to cast their roles for supporting characters, they looked to local Oregon talent first.

From my recollection, the role of Cora was originally written as a middle aged “Flo” type character, the typical small town diner waitress. They were not looking to cast anyone like me, but I had just finished working on Kelly Reichardt’s independent film, Wendy and Lucy with Michelle Williams and since the casting director, Lana Veenker and her assistant Lori knew my work, they felt confident that I could pull off the role of Cora if given the chance.  They brought me in for the first audition, simply as an opportunity for LA casting to see if they’d like to bring me back for a second audition- they did!

My second audition was with Catherine Hardwicke where we role-played, i.e. Catherine playing both Bella AND Charlie with myself playing Cora. I left that audition convinced that I’d blown my chance and lost the role, because we’d spent the entire audition laughing. Catherine kept throwing in these hilarious scenarios like, my line would be, “Say Chief, Did you find anything down by Queets River today?” And she’d say something like, “Yep, Looks like ol’ Waylon was eaten by a Vampire.” I’d have to respond with “Wow, really?? Shoot Chief, that really sucks. More Berry Cobbler?”. It was one of the most fun auditions I’ve ever had.

I found out about a week and a half later that I’d landed the role of Cora!

PP: The scene between you and Kristen and Billy is pretty long.  What was it like filming with Kristen?  Were you aware of her as an actress before this movie?

AB: I was aware of Kristen from Panic Room and she’d been working since such a young age, it was great to talk with her about filmmakers, acting and our mutual acting influences while we were between shots.

It was really interesting filming with Kristen, because she was such a quiet and thoughtful actress. She was very aware of what was happening around her on set, but then she could seamlessly drop into the scene and be fully engaged. She cares a greatdeal about what she’s creating as an artist and that was really cool to see in her. At the time, she was still 17 (she turned 18 on set, a big deal because it meant that she could work full days and not have to end early due to child labor laws) and she had been around for a long time already. I was impressed because she came across as a very seasoned and extremely professional actress.

Read the entire interview here.