Portland Actress, Ayanna Berkshire talks about her role in "twilight"

Here is a very interesting interview with Ayanna Berkshire.


Ayanna Berkshire
Age: 32 "Twilight" role: Cora, waitress in the Carver Cafe

Claim-to-fame moment: Serving "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer, who makes a cameo as a cafe customer

How she got the role: "We got the call that they were auditioning. I auditioned first for (Portland casting agent) Lana Veenker. My second audition was with (director) Catherine Hardwicke, who came to Portland for the auditions.

"I was up against a close friend of mine, and we both wanted the role so badly. It came down to two roles -- there was Cora, and then a nurse in the hospital where Dr. Cullen (Facinelli) works. We knew the role of Cora was going to be gold. I thought I'd bombed in my audition with Catherine. We improvised and laughed the entire time, but I thought, 'My friend is gonna go in there and she's gonna nail it.'

"We had to wait two weeks before we found out who got Cora, and it was just nerve-racking. Then I got a call that I got the role. Immediately after that, I got a call from my friend saying, 'I don't know if I'm the first to tell you, but you got Cora, because I got the nurse!' I totally bawled. Such emotion had built up because after reading the books, I was super-invested."

The inner life of Cora: "Before my second audition, I walked around my house in North Portland as Cora and thought about the world as Cora. Being from the San Juan Islands originally, I wasn't that far from Forks (where 'Twilight' is set). I was one of less than a handful of minorities in my hometown, and I worked at an A&W. I looked at the photos of Forks that Stephenie Meyer posted on her Web site, and I imagined that as my hometown.

"At one time they were thinking of Cora as a love interest for Charlie Swan (Forks chief of police and father of heroine Bella). That was before the fourth book came out. I was laughing with Stephenie Meyer between takes, and I said to her, 'If you could just write in the last book that Charlie and Cora live happily ever after, you'd be doing me a big solid.' She was very sweet. I'm immensely impressed by what she's done."

Team Edward or Team Jacob?: Fans have crushes on both vampire heartthrob Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), the Quileute tribe member who can turn into a wolf. "I've been asked that many times. My new motto is, I'm Team Berry Cobbler" (the dessert Cora serves Bella). I did get to meet Robert Pattinson a couple of times, and he was fantastic. I actually met his parents before I met him. I have a day job as an optician and they came in, looking to have some glasses repaired."

The "Twilight" effect: "Somebody started a MySpace page for Cora the waitress. I have a huge following in Turkey. A 'Twilight' Web forum there approached me to come online and answer questions. People find my MySpace page, and I get lots of acting-related questions, and then more frivolous ones, like, 'What does Robert Pattinson smell like?' Well, he smells like a 21-, 22-year-old guy. He smells like he should smell. I'm sure if anybody smelled him, they'd just be wooed and won immediately."