“We wanted someone who had an unearthly and unlikely beauty, but could also convey humor and menace,” explains Weitz, who reportedly also considered AnnaLynne McCord of “90210” before eventually settling on Seear. “It’s rare to find a stunningly attractive person who also happens to have the ability to act.”
Certainly Seear has the first part of the equation down. Discovered by a scout at 13, the model (born Renata Seear) left her native Vancouver for New York City, where she booked the Calvin Klein show within a week.
“And that was it. I wasn’t going back to Canada,” she recalls.
Twelve years later, Seear has a solid portfolio full of high-profile gigs, including print ads for Chanel and Pantene Pro-V. And while she’s probably most recognizable for posing as Mona Lisa in a 1998 Yves Saint Laurent campaign, Seear is by no means a household name. “I have this representation where they’ve never overexposed me,” she says.
Seear plans to bring that same measured approach to acting. “I’ve always been biting at the bit to get into this industry,” says the model, who has trained with famed acting coach Alan Savage for the past few years and has already had bit parts on Canadian TV shows. “Alan was always like, ‘Be patient, you’ve only got one shot at this,’” she says. (It doesn’t hurt that Seear’s New York agency, One Model Management, has helped the likes of Devon Aoki make similar career switches.)
But when the opportunity to be part of the “Twilight” juggernaut came about, she knew it was her time. “I started reading the books, and I couldn’t put them down,” she says.
She admits she was worried her modeling years would hinder her acting chops. “I was really scared because you’re not allowed to look in the camera [when filming a movie], but in the modeling world, you’re supposed to,” recalls Seear, whose problem was solved by the heavy-duty violet contacts she had to wear on-screen. “I literally couldn’t see 2 feet in front of me. They would tell me, ‘Look at Kristen [Stewart],’ and I was like, ‘OK. Where is she?’”
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