Best known for his portrayal of Carlisle Cullen, the patriarch of the Cullen vampire clan in the hugely successful Twilight saga films, Peter Facinelli is also currently starring in the popular Showtime television series Nurse Jackie, opposite Edie Falco.
Juggling fatherhood (he and his wife, actress Jennie Garth, have three young daughters) with a film and television career, the New York native has proven his versatility, doing comedy, drama and action, on both the big and small screen. Getting ready to start filming the third installment of the Twilight saga, Eclipse, with director David Slade, Peter Facinelli spoke to IESB for this exclusive interview about what it’s like to have the job security of a successful film franchise and a critically acclaimed TV show.
IESB: What initially attracted you to acting? Was there someone or something that inspired you to do it, or did you just know that you wanted to be a performer?
Peter: No, I was the opposite of a performer. I was really shy, when I was growing up. I saw a movie called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in third grade, and I thought Paul Newman and Robert Redford looked like they were having a really good time, and I said, “That’s what I want to do, when I grow up.” I always was inspired by Paul Newman and Robert Redford to want to be an actor, but I never really did anything about it because I was shy. So, all through high school, I never did a play.
Not until college, did I start to do acting. I transferred into NYU from St. John’s University and started studying theater. I was going to take law because it seemed to impress people in my family when I said, “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.” One time, I told them that I wanted to be an actor and they all looked at me like I had five heads. The next time they asked me what I wanted to be, I said, “A lawyer,” and I got a lot of oohs and aahs in the family. When you watch movies and you watch Law & Order, it looks so interesting.
IESB: You seem to constantly be working now, and yet you manage to successfully maintain a marriage and family in an industry where that seems impossible. Do you feel like you’ve succeeded at finding a balance between work and family, or is it a constant juggling act?
Peter: It’s always a constant juggling act. While I’m doing this interview with you, I’m standing in the Empire State Building with my kids, who are hanging out, waiting for me, so I can take them up to the top. You’re always juggling, back and forth. I just take it day-by-day, and then all those days add up, and you look back and that’s your life.
IESB: How did you get involved with Nurse Jackie? Was it just a regular audition, or did they ask to see you? Had you been looking to do more television?
Peter: I had just finished Twilight, and I knew the writers from Nurse Jackie, so they called my agent and said, “Hey, there’s a part in here that we like Peter for.” But, I wasn’t looking to do television. Also, because I have a family, I have a steadfast rule that, if a TV show doesn’t shoot in L.A., I won’t do it. But, the previous year, I had done Damages and I realized that, if it’s a cable show and only has 13 episodes, I could do it because it’s like going to do a movie. You’re only going to work for two or three months and then you’re back, and you can go back and forth.
I wasn’t looking for a 23-episode commitment ‘cause then you’re just gone for nine months out of the year. So, when they called my agent, my agent just told them, “Oh, he won’t do it because it doesn’t shoot in L.A.,” and they passed on it for me, without asking me. And then, I actually got a copy of it. My agents told me, “Hey, we passed on this for you, but if you want to read it, read it.” The cover of it said, “Untitled Edie Falco Project,” and right there, I knew it was going to be special because Edie Falco was attached and, if she was coming back to TV, then it had to be good.
IESB: Then, how did you end up actually getting cast?
Peter: Well, none of the guys that they tested on that Monday were right for it, so they realized then, by getting my email, that I liked it and they came after me. I had lunch with them. I’m not a huge fan of auditioning, but in this case, I actually asked them if I could audition. They’re friends of mine and I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was along those same lines of what they wanted. It’s a very tricky tone. It’s a tone that I had never seen before on a show, so I wanted to make sure that my tone of comedy and what I was going to bring to the table was something that was going to work for them. I didn’t want to say, “Let’s sign the deal,” and then get on the set and have them be like, “This isn’t what we wanted at all.” And so, I went in and read with them. They put it on tape and were like, “That’s what we want. That’s perfect.” And, they sent the tape to Edie and Edie put the stamp of approval on it and, within two or three days, I had the role.
IESB: In regard to making the Twilight films, at what point did you get the sense that you were part of something that would become so huge?
Peter: Not until the premiere of the movie, did I realize how huge it had become. When we finished filming, it was an independent film that was based on a book that had a good size fan base. But, somewhere between the end of filming and the premiere, it just snowballed into this cultural phenomenon. I was on the beach, over the summer, that year and people were reading the books. I couldn’t count, on one hand, how many people were reading the books on the beach. And, I thought, “Wow, a lot of people are into this book.” People were coming up to me, before the movie was out, saying, “You play Carlisle Cullen.” They were already on the Internet, checking out who the characters were.
I remember being on the beach in Hawaii and some fan of the books knew that I was playing that character, even before the movie came out. And then, when the movie came out, on the night of the premiere, it was just completely surreal. There were five lots of screaming fans, and I’d never seen anything like it before. It was really weird because they hadn’t seen the movie yet, and they were screaming and cheering. I thought, “Well, this could become an angry mob, if they don’t like the movie.” But, thankfully, they did, and now it’s only gotten even bigger.
I did a charity autograph session in West Virginia recently and people flew out from, like, Ohio to come to a signing, and that’s pretty amazing. To get people on an airplane, to fly somewhere to go get an autograph from somebody, just shows the power of that fanbase, and how loyal and faithful and amazing they are.
IESB: Was there a certain comfort level, in returning to this character again for New Moon, having already played him before?
Peter: Definitely. It’s like putting on an old pair of jeans, the second time around. You feel like you already know this character and you’ve created him, and you know the other actors and you know the relationships, but you’re always looking to dig a little deeper and find more because you don’t want to keep churning out the same thing. You try to keep finding different layers. With the first movie, I did a lot more research on how this character was. For the second movie, I worked more on his relationships within the family structure.
