Over the past year, the 2008 cult classic Twilight has reentered the public headspace. Between Stephanie Meyer returning to the franchise with Midnight Sun, a hilarious deleted scene being passed around and Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson now stepping into some new iconic roles. As it turns out, lightning can in fact strike twice for the vampire love story. One scene from the movie has even inspired pop singer Tessa Violet to step into the Cullens’ cleats for a music video.
The first scene we all think about when it comes to Twilight is the stylized sequence that builds up to the climax of the film where Edward Cullen’s vampire family play a game of baseball together to the tune of Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole.” Check out Tessa Violet’s tribute to the famed cinematic moment for “Games”:
She got it down to Alice Cullen’s high kick! CinemaBlend spoke to Tessa Violet about how the “Games” video came together. Here’s how she got the idea:
I wish it was something besides just Twilight is all over TikTok right now and I’ve seen a lot of it. It’s definitely in the zeitgeist and that scene especially you see it everywhere and I’m like hmm… three evil vampires in the scene, three people in lovelytheband. I don’t know, it was just like an idea and I’m like, ‘Can we do that? Would people get it?’ To me it just seemed so funny. When you do a music video you can really lean into it.
The singer was in high school when the Twilight books and films were having a moment, becoming major moments in pop culture. It, of course, divided a generation into the camps of Team Edward and Team Jacob. Tessa Violet recalled in our interview taking turns with friends, reading each chapter aloud to each other over a decade before her “Games” video came to life.
A huge element to Twilight’s resurgence over the last year has been TikTok, with fans often looking back at the movie production’s goofy elements such as how the vampires’ ran on set. Tessa Violet reached out to her manager about the idea, and they decided they ‘have to do this.’ Then came recreating the scene itself alongside her song. Tessa Violet continued:
We intentionally tried to mimic all those shots, shot-for-shot. The directors and they had previously recreated this scene in their kitchen one night just for kicks and put it on Twitter and it kind of went viral. So, they came into it with some expertise on how do we mimic this shot-for-shot. And then of course the music video has more because that scene is shorter than the song. It was super fun.
The music video stars Violet with her band and lovelytheband, who she released a new version with last month. The song is originally off her debut 2019 album Bad Ideas. The end of the song features a hilarious cameo with Peter Facinelli, who played Carlisle Cullen in the movies. The singer shared how she recruited the Twilight talent to join her tribute:
We reached out to his team and asked ‘hey, would you want to do this?’ and at first he was like ‘you’re not making fun of Twilight right?’ And we’re like, ‘No! We stan Twilight!’
Peter Facinelli clearly didn’t get to come to the baseball field with her to shoot the scene, but they poke perfect fun at how blatantly CGI’d in he is with a funny moment where she says she “can’t believe he’s really here in this location” with him.
The fun video that has certainly reached the Twilight fanbase and racked up over one million views already. Tessa Violet has also released merchandise to go along with her Twilight theme, including a “Team Tessa” shirt in the design of the original Hot Topic t-shirt of the time. It just goes to show that we continue to live in a blue-filtered Twilight world, and we’re all thriving in it.
