Recap of Live Chat with Eclipse Castmembers

With the premiere of the new "Eclipse" trailer on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the first-ever "Twilight Saga" live chat on the film's Facebook page on Friday (April 23), it's been an exciting day for "Twilight" fans. Almost 8,000 viewers tuned in to listen to stars Nikki Reed, Bryce Dallas Howard and Julia Jones answer fan questions.

While the submissions tended to be fairly generic — "What was your favorite memory on set?" "What was your favorite scene and why?" — it was clear that Reed, Howard and Jones all had great chemistry with one another, despite the fact that they didn't work together too often. They admitted that there was a lot of downtime on the set, because outdoor scenes were weather-dependent and the cast and crew would have to wait around for the moment to be right.

Reed said that led to a lot of guitar playing, considering co-stars Jackson Rathbone, Xavier Samuel and, of course, Robert Pattinson are all musically inclined. But Jones — who plays soon-to-be-wolf Leah Clearwater — said that, since she spent her time with "incredibly energy-filled boys," her experiences offscreen were a bit different.

"There was a lot of football throwing. There was a lot of hitting people with sticks," Jones said with a laugh. "I think there was a full-on day of 'who can break the biggest stick over their head.' "

"They played a game that was 'let's see who can break through Nikki's trailer door and tackle her the hardest and get her to come out and play football,' " Reed said with faux irritation.

But even when they were shooting, Jones said she didn't always get to film with the rest of the cast. Since the wolves are done with CGI, the fight scenes used cardboard cutouts of wolves instead of the actual actors.

"It's hard to be intimidating while looking at cardboard," Reed said.

Both Jones and Howard were new to "The Twilight Saga," but they said they were immediately embraced by their fellow castmembers. Howard remembered when she was getting on the plane to fly to Vancouver and hid in the corner because she was so nervous about meeting the rest of the cast. Fortunately for Howard, that quickly changed.

"I haven't had an experience on a film where you actually get to know a group of people as well as I did on this film," she said. "I just have so much respect for everyone who's involved with them. They've stayed really grounded, and their friendships have stayed really true."

Since Victoria had already appeared in "Twilight" and "New Moon," Howard said she focused heavily on keeping the movements and looks of her character consistent with how Rachelle Lefevre played her in the previous films. Interestingly enough, Lefevre's name was not mentioned during Howard's discussion.

Another new person to the film was director David Slade, who all the actresses said they had a great experience with. Reed said he would sit down with each of the actors for several hours to talk about the characters, since he was a very detail-oriented director.

"It's scary being a part of this sometimes, to be honest, because you want to make sure you get it right, and you don't know what right is," she said.

The live chat was only 30 minutes long, but moderator Shira Lazar emphasized that this was all the time the cast had for today, implying that there could be more chats to come with other castmembers in the coming months.

mtv.com