Twilight Cast: Every Actor, Character and Director

The Twilight cast is led by Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, with six Cullen family members, a wolf pack, a Volturi court and a town full of humans behind them. The table lists the leads, the Cullens, the Volturi and the main supporting names, and the prose after it covers the remaining billed actors.

The three leads carry the saga. Kristen Stewart plays bella swan, Robert Pattinson plays edward cullen and Taylor Lautner plays jacob black, and the billing order tells a small story of its own. In Twilight (2008) Lautner is billed tenth, but by The Twilight Saga: New Moon he has moved up to third, behind the two actors who anchor the romance. Billy Burke plays Bella's father, charlie swan, and he is billed in all five films.

The Cullens are the most stable group in the saga. Peter Facinelli plays carlisle cullen, Elizabeth Reaser plays Esme Cullen, Ashley Greene plays alice cullen, Jackson Rathbone plays Jasper Hale, Kellan Lutz plays Emmett Cullen and Nikki Reed plays rosalie hale. All six are billed in every one of the five films, so the Cullens in the Twilight cast never change. If you want the family relationships behind those names, the cullen family guide covers them, and the twilight characters page lists the wider ensemble.

The Volturi arrive in New Moon. Michael Sheen plays Aro, the leader of the coven (the aro twilight page covers him), and he returns in both Breaking Dawn parts. Dakota Fanning plays Jane in New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn Part 2, while Jamie Campbell Bower joins as Caius in Breaking Dawn Part 2. The Volturi scenes in New Moon were shot in Montepulciano, Italy, where the Piazza Grande fountain doubles for their city, according to the Tuscany tourism board.

Beyond the family trees there is a deep bench of supporting names. Cam Gigandet plays James in Twilight (2008), Edi Gathegi plays Laurent in that film and in New Moon, and Gil Birmingham plays Billy Black. Graham Greene plays Harry Clearwater in New Moon. On the human side, Anna Kendrick plays Jessica in three films, Michael Welch and Justin Chon play Mike and Eric in Eclipse, and Sarah Clarke plays Bella's mother, Renée, in Breaking Dawn Part 1. Christian Camargo appears as Eleazar Denali in that same film, and Maggie Grace plays Irina in Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Four directors and four composers worked on the five Twilight films, and only the Breaking Dawn pair shares both a director and a composer.

Catherine Hardwicke directed twilight 2008 on a budget of $37 million. A news report from the time, carried by Hurriyet, notes that MTV Films had shelved the project before it found its way to the screen, and that the release date moved from December 12 to November 21, 2008. The budgets then climb with every film, from $50 million for New Moon to $120 million for Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Chris Weitz took over for twilight new moon after Hardwicke left the series, and Screen Daily reported his hiring on December 15, 2008. His film is the one that shot the Volturi scenes in Montepulciano.

David Slade directed twilight eclipse. TheWrap reported his appointment in April 2009, with Melissa Rosenberg writing the screenplay, and Screen Daily reported that filming began in Vancouver in August 2009. Eclipse reached US theaters on June 30, 2010, the only film in the saga to open in the summer.

Bill Condon directed both breaking dawn part 1 and breaking dawn part 2. TheWrap reported that Condon was negotiating to direct the two films as one back to back production. Local business coverage in Louisiana reported that the Baton Rouge shoot for both parts wrapped around February 2011, after about four months.

The music changed hands as often as the director's chair. Lizzy Pattinson is credited as composer on Twilight (2008), Alexandre Desplat on New Moon, Howard Shore on Eclipse and Carter Burwell on both Breaking Dawn films. The full list of songs and albums sits on the twilight soundtrack page.

Almost the entire Twilight cast returned for every film, and only one major role changed hands on screen: Victoria.

Rachelle Lefevre played Victoria in Twilight (2008) and New Moon, and Bryce Dallas Howard took over in Eclipse, the film where Victoria is secretly building an army of newborn vampires to take revenge on Edward. In my opinion, the swap was handled about as smoothly as such changes can be, because Eclipse gives the character a clear job and a clear plan. Perhaps the bigger point is how rare it is. Across five films, every other role in the table kept the same actor from film to film, which is unusual for a saga that ran for four years.

The crew tells a different story. No director repeated until Bill Condon took both Breaking Dawn parts, and the composer changed with each of the first four films. It could be argued that this is why each entry has its own look, from the rainy Forks of Hardwicke's film to the Italian scenes in Weitz's, but it also means the saga never settled on one visual signature. That being said, the cast held it together.

One new role needed a different kind of casting. Mackenzie Foy plays Renesmee in Breaking Dawn Part 2, and Bustle's oral history of the production reports that the filmmakers used CGI and face mapping on Foy for the baby scenes after dropping an animatronic doll. So the Renesmee on screen is partly an actor and partly a digital effect. You can read more about the character on the renesmee page.

What is the Twilight cast doing now? As of November 2026 there is no announced new theatrical Twilight film. In August 2025 Lionsgate's "Forever Begins Again" teaser, which showed Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, led fans to expect a new movie, but the follow up announcement said none was in the works and that the teaser promoted a theatrical run of all five original films in October 2025, according to Yahoo Entertainment syndicating ComingSoon.net. That rumor is denied. The one new project is Twilight: Midnight Sun, an animated series, not a film. Netflix gave it a straight to series order in September 2024, with Lionsgate Television producing, Sinead Daly writing and executive producing, and Stephenie Meyer as an executive producer, according to the Deseret News. No cast has been announced. For current status, see the new twilight movie page.

If you are new to the saga, the twilight movies in order guide shows where each cast change lands, and the twilight movies hub links to every film.