A local teenager beat competition from thousands of other envious school pupils for the chance to interview the stars of the hit ‘Twilight’ movies.
Upton Hall School sixth-former Emily Hall, 16, travelled down to London to meet Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner as the final instalment of the Twilight saga, ‘Breaking Dawn: Part Two’ hit cinema screens, taking £214 million worldwide in its opening weekend.
Whilst at her previous school, Prenton High School for Girls, Emily helped set up a branch of FILMCLUB, which is a charity that provides children with the chance to watch, review and discuss films in order to further their education.
Rock Ferry student Emily told JMU Journalism: “We were able to audition for the role of ‘Film Club Young Ambassador’ which was to represent young people across the nation on big events such as red carpet premieres, press junkets and press conferences.”
She added: “The time I applied I think there were 2,000 applicants but that got narrowed down into sections, above 12 and below 12. Then in my audition there were about 20 people but even that got narrowed down to 10 over both groups, so there was a lot of competition. Me and my friend, Louise Wade, got chosen to be Young Ambassadors so we’ve got to do a lot of cool things.”
Indeed, meeting the two male stars of the global vampire phenomenon was not the first taste Emily has had of the showbiz world. Thanks to her role within FILMCLUB, which reaches 220,000 school pupils in around 7,000 schools, she has met and interviewed a host of celebrities and movie icons.
Emily told JMU Journalism: “I’ve been to red carpet events for the National Movie Awards and also Coriolanus, which Ralph Fiennes directed. I did a one-on-one interview with Ralph Fiennes and I’m a big Harry Potter fan and he plays Voldemort so I was going a bit crazy over that one!“The National Movie Awards last year was my first assignment and I spoke to JLS, the cast of The Inbetweeners, Nick Frost, Matthew Horne, Geoffrey Rush and even Shirley Bassey, which was quite a shock!
“There was Jamie Campbell-Bower too, and he’s quite a big crush of mine because he’s in Harry Potter as well.”
Emily explained that her work was not all glitz and glamour though, saying: “Some of it was quite hard work. When we went through how to review a film I struggled a bit. There were so many people doing such good reviews that I was really nervous about that part. It wasn’t just about presenting on camera either, it was about getting the right questions, like what questions you should ask a director rather than an actor.”
On her last assignment Emily also interviewed Jeremy Irvine, who plays Pip in the forthcoming Great Expectations movie, but thinks she may not get the chance to cover the press events for the film launch this weekend, as she is now considered a “FILMCLUB graduate” and has to leave such opportunities to a new batch of reporters.
Currently studying physics, maths, English literature and history A-Levels, Emily is keeping her options open but says she has “definitely has had the most fun doing the film events” and is seriously considering a career in journalism.