Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Does Robert Pattinson, the vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies, have "real" vampire blood running in his veins?
The day before David Slade’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, in which Pattinson co-stars with Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, is to have its world premiere in Los Angeles, it’s revealed that Pattinson is related to none other than Vlad III Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler.
Vlad was a ruthless, merciless Transylvanian ruler widely believed to have been the inspiration for the ever-thirsty character in Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula.
Ancestry.com is the source for this latest bit of Pattinson news. Ancestry.com researchers reached their conclusion after connecting both Pattinson and Twilight Saga author Stephenie Meyer to the British royal family. Prince William and Prince Harry are supposed to be Pattinson’s and Meyer’s distant cousins. (At least in the case of Robert Pattinson and the princes, we’re talking about tenuous blood ties that date as far back as the 1500s.) Vlad the Impaler, for his part, was the princes’ distant uncle.
Now, could Vlad be the princes’ great-great-great-etc-uncle and not be Pattinson’s direct relative? I guess so. The Ancestry.com press release doesn’t provide all that many details.
According to more Ancestry.com celebrity research, Emma Watson is related to a woman accused of witchcraft in the 16th century and Madonna is Ellen DeGeneres‘ cousin.
Directed by David Slade (tenth cousin to Alfred Hitchcock?), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse opens in the United States and a number of other countries on June 30. Melissa Rosenberg adapted Meyer’s bestseller.
Also in the Eclipse cast: Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Kellan Lutz, Xavier Samuel, Dakota Fanning, Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Billy Burke, Daniel Cudmore, Anna Kendrick, Booboo Stewart, Julia Jones, and Jodelle Ferland.
Photo: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Kimberley French / Summit Entertainment)