Although werewolves are the natural enemies of vampires in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Edward Cullen has another enemy lurking in the tunnels beneath Volterra: Felix, a wall of muscle with a mean streak and a penchant for punishing errant vampires with his fists. To play the Volturi enforcer, director Chris Weitz enlisted 6’8” Canadian actor Daniel Cudmore, a part-time stunt actor best known as the shirtless mutant Colossus in X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand.

We caught up with the jovial actor during his multi-city Twilight tour with fellow Volturi Charlie Bewley before the pair moved on from Philadelphia to Seattle and finally, Phoenix. (Check out our exclusive interview with Charlie Bewley here!)  Cudmore discussed his pivotal fight scene with Robert Pattinson (including how much of the stunt work Rob performed himself), shared his insights on Felix’s inferiority complex, and gave his impressions on Eclipse director David Slade.

FEARnet: What’s it been like to jump into this huge Twilight phenomenon?

Daniel Cudmore: It’s been great! It’s such a big film. On the first film, they did such a good job of identifying what Stephenie Meyer had written, and you come into New Moon knowing that you already have this great audience from the books and a great audience from the first film. New Moon compared to the book has so much more action – you’re bringing in the werewolves, you’re bringing in the Volturi, so now you have a new audience of males that can watch this and really enjoy it. You step into this great film and it’s just fun to play a cool character and just enjoy yourself with it.

You’ve mentioned before that you originally auditioned for a different part than Felix. What part was it?

It was one of the guys outside the bar who try to pick up Bella, one of the bikers.

How did the role of Felix come to you, then? The two are such different characters to play.

You know, I don’t know. Maybe they had me in mind for it – I’m not sure if once they had me audition for that they thought, why not have him audition for Felix? I never really asked why.

Your big scene looked like a fun one to film – you basically throw Robert Pattinson around the Volturi chamber in a sequence featuring really cool stunt choreography.

Mike Desabrais was the fight choreographer and he worked with [stunt choreographer] J.J. Makaro. I’ve worked with J.J. in the past and I was fortunate enough to just call him and say, “Can I work on as much of this fight scene as possible?” And he was really cool about saying, “Yeah, we’ll get you to do as much as we can.” I worked with Robert [Pattinson] on it, also. He really enjoyed himself. Those guys put together such a cool fight scene. Once you start building on it and working on it and start piecing it together... I haven’t seen the final product but I know the whole fight, obviously, since I’ve done it. I’m just really excited to see what it’s going to look like on the big screen.

Did you know that the final scene would integrate a lot of slow motion and camera effects into your movements?

No, I didn’t know until we sat down and they started explaining the images in their heads, of what they wanted to achieve. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s cool! That’s great!” Getting more and more amped up, like, let’s shoot it now! And they’re like, “It’s rehearsal – settle down.”
 
How much of the Edward-Felix fight scene actually featured Robert Pattinson doing his own stunts?

He did a lot of it. He was game for it. I remember when he first came in saying, “I can’t do this stuff, I’m kind of clumsy, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it,” and he started really trying it and was getting it right away. He’s starting to smile, having a good time. When it came to filming I think he was really excited about a lot of it. So it was quite a bit of him and a lot of his stunt double, Simon Burnett. I think Rob did maybe 40 or 50 percent [of his own stunts].

Your character, Felix, is a wall of a man, an enforcer. But even he seems afraid of Jane. Would you say that’s true? Is Felix really scared, deep down, of little Dakota Fanning?

You could look at it as him being afraid, but I think she has such a strong power; I think the character of Felix has probably been through pain and things like that, but I think more or less he views Aro as his master, and Jane can be considered Aro’s daughter, in a way. So he doesn’t want to do anything to harm her, because then he’ll be reprimanded by Aro.

Well, it seems like one of the challenges of playing Felix would be that there’s not a whole lot written about him in Stephenie Meyer’s books. How did you get around that in approaching Felix?

You have to kind of build something up, so that you can relate to it. You bring your own story of what you feel this character is. I picture him as having all this anger from being jealous that he doesn’t have a power, and Aro thinks of all the other vampires as higher than him even though he does his job perfectly all the time. And he’s worked with Demetri, and they’ve worked with the team for so long and have done such a great job.

So you think Felix has a bit of an inferiority complex?

Yes, a little bit! That’s where his anger comes from.

In the books Felix seemed to have a sort of minor flirtation with Bella – winking at her, etc. What’s your take on that?

I think it’s more of him showing his power over her and kind of messing around with her head. Letting her know that he could end things very quickly. He enjoys that.  

Sadly, we don’t see much of the Volturi in New Moon because it serves as more of an introduction to their coven than in later books, when the Volturi have more of a presence. How much can we expect to see of you in Eclipse?

It’s not as much. You get to Eclipse and you’re introducing Riley’s storyline, Victoria coming back to get her vengeance. We’re still there and we still have a strong presence, and it’s not more dramatic but it’s still a really cool storyline.

How much time did you spend shooting Eclipse?

Not a ton. I think a week, in total.

What impression did you get of director David Slade from working with him on Eclipse?

I liked him. I thought he was really cool. He’s got a really dark sense of humor and he’s one of those people that you can see has the whole thing worked out in his head. He’s really driven. And he’s fun to be around. I really like people who are so concentrated they know what they want to get out of each shot. You see 30 Days of Night – I really enjoyed that film, so I’m excited to see what his interpretation is going to be.

Beyond Eclipse and thinking towards the potential Breaking Dawn adaptation, where would you like to see Felix go as a character?

I just think it’s a cool character and I really enjoy playing it. As an actor the more I can bring, the more I can play this character, is great. So if they want to bring this character and Demetri and the others up, I’m all for it.

Felix is sort of a scary, large man, but you don’t seem so scary. What’s a sensitive side of yourself that your fans don’t really know about you yet?

I’m an animal lover. That’s the one thing. I don’t have pets, just because it wouldn’t be fair to them since I travel around all the time. It wouldn’t be fair to have a dog, but I’d love to.