Left to right: Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Robert Pattinson (Edward) in Summit Entertainment's Twilight Photo by Peter Sorel

The fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books are fierce. The Internet is swarming with fan sites, blogs, Facebook pages, and forums devoted to the sweet story of Bella Swan and her vegetarian vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen. The anticipation for the movie, which won't be out until almost Christmas, is already deafening — literally. The fans at Comic-Con 2008 who attended the Twilight panel shrieked like the cast, director, and author were The Beatles' second coming.

Premiere was lucky enough to meet with some of the stars of Twilight, director Catherine Hardwicke, and bestselling author Stephenie Meyer to discuss staying true to Meyer's visions, good vampires versus bad vampires, and much more.

How do you feel about the phenomenon that's been your work?
Stephenie Meyer: It's a very strange and surreal thing and most mornings I get up and don't think about it at all, and then I come some place like here and I'm not allowed to walk in the front door! And it's weird and it's hard for me to... You know, I have a very normal life, and so when I have to step out of that and realize that I have all these readers and all this excitement, it's weird. It's great! But, it's really strange.

How did this whole thing come to you? Where was that flash of inspiration for you?
SM: It was an actual flash. I was not planning to write. I had no aspirations to be a writer, [but] I had this really fantastic dream. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it, and in [that] one day I was hooked on writing.

How reticent about giving up the rights? What were you looking for when you decided to say yes?
SM: I lost a few nights of sleep over it. The two sides [of my brain] were [competing]... more adaptations than not [have] turned out badly. There are a few that are amazing, but most of the time it's not a good thing. But, then on the other side, I saw the book very visually when I was writing it, and just to see one scene of it on the big screen [was worth it]. I didn't care about anyone else going to see it. This was about me, alone, in the theater getting to see it on the screen and having it be real, and that's what swayed me.

How close of an adaptation is it?
SM: I have not seen the whole thing yet, but from the script and from the days on set, they are really working hard. I mean, the goal was to make it as close to the book as possible, given the time constraints of the film. I mean, the book was a bit long.

Catherine Hardwicke: We did have to tighten it up a little bit.

How did you end up directing the project?
CH: I read several scripts that Summit was planning to make last year and I threw away all the other ones, but this one looked really interesting. Then I went and read the book next and I thought, "Oh my God, the book is so powerful and so much better than the script." So we kind of threw that script away too and started over and got the script to really match the book the best that we could.

You look like Bella to me. How do you like the Bella that they chose for you?
SM: I think Kristen is a really great actress. When they first told me about her, I'd seen her in other things where she played more of a blond bombshell and I was like, "Hmmm...." But then when they got her in makeup and hair, and Catherine's really just great at bringing out in an actress what needs to be there, and [Kristen's] really got it down. Plus, I really love her voice. I just think she has Bella's voice.