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"View Slideshow\n\nReaders of Architectural Digest might feel a tug of d\u00E9j\u00E0 vu watching certain scenes of Breaking Dawn\u2014Part 1, the latest movie in the popular Twilight series. It\u2019s the penultimate installment of the five-film saga, whose story line centers on a love triangle involving a young woman, a vampire, and a werewolf, played by Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner. As it happens, a Brazilian beach house designed by the architecture firm Bernardes + Jacobsen, which was featured in AD\u2019s January 2011 issue, also has a starring role, as the honeymoon retreat where Bella Swan (Stewart) and her vampire husband, Edward Cullen (Pattinson), finally consummate their romance. In anticipation of the November 18 release, AD talked with the film\u2019s production designer, Richard Sherman, to get the stories behind the movie\u2019s sets, life on location with the young stars, and his approach to designing the wedding of the century.\n\nARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: How did you choose the Bernardes + Jacobsen house for Edward and Bella\u2019s Brazilian honeymoon?\n\nRICHARD SHERMAN: We looked at pictures and found a house we loved. But two days later we learned it was going to be blown up because it had been built illegally. The next morning I got on a plane to Brazil, hopped on a boat, and went through countless islands along the coastline south of Rio. It took us four weeks to finally find the Bernardes + Jacobsen house, which had a tropical modern interior and was located near Paraty on the coast that we liked.\n\nAD: Did you change anything about the house?\n\nRS: For the movie we actually created our own exterior\u2014what\u2019s visible when you approach the house by boat\u2014in the visual effects department. What you see of the real house is the front door, the steps leading up to it, the veranda, and all those glass doors. I loved the interior. We made a big open kitchen and living room. Some of the scenes that take place inside the house were actually shot on soundstages in Louisiana, where we created a courtyard, a bathroom, and the bedroom where Edward and Bella spend their wedding night. It was a seamless set\u2014you really couldn\u2019t tell the difference between the house and our stages.\n\nAD: How closely did you follow the descriptions in the book when filming in Brazil?\n\nRS: In some cases we really veered away from the book. What works well on the page doesn\u2019t always work well on film. The location was challenging. Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the novels, set the honeymoon on an island in the middle of nowhere. Brazil is famous for its many islands down the coastline from Rio to Paraty. When you look out from the location where we shot, you don\u2019t just see a horizon of water, as she wrote, but all these beautiful tropical islands. In the end it all worked out very well.\n\nAD: Basically the whole series has been building toward Bella and Edward\u2019s wedding. What was your approach to designing such a momentous scene?\n\nRS: The way Stephenie has written it in the book, it\u2019s a very pretty wedding\u2014it has the white path and the white chairs that are covered in white fabric. But Bill [Condon, the film\u2019s director] and I thought, How can we make this truly special and unique? For the people who know the books and movies, this is the wedding of the century. So we created this very organic, whimsical, fairy tale\u2013like atmosphere\u2014A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream kind of thing\u2014with benches and seating made of branches that came out of the ground and were covered in moss and flowers. The whole forest floor was covered in moss. The ceiling was dripping flowers.\n\nAD: Were some of the sets recycled from previous movies, or are they all new?\n\nRS: Bella\u2019s house is the same. But we rebuilt the whole three-story set of the Cullen house in Louisiana on a soundstage, and we remade its exterior in the woods of Vancouver. We changed the interior decoration of the Cullen house subtly but completely. If you remember the original house well, you\u2019ll notice that it is completely different. This has the same tone, but it\u2019s a lot prettier. The other huge change is the castle of the Volturi, a group of vampires from the Roman Empire. The sets from the other movies kind of looked like\u2014no offense to those art directors\u2014the Four Seasons Hotel, with marble columns and sconces. So we built an old castle on stage.\n\nAD: Did you worry about the perceptions of the fans?\n\nRS: You have to keep your fan base in mind, because they\u2019re the real critics. They know the story so well, they know what happens, and they know the environments and the atmosphere. You hope that your sets coincide with what the audience and the fans expect. The producers, studio, director, and I were all very conscious of that.\n\nAD: What was it like on the set?\n\nRS: Everyone had a good time. The three main actors are all very fun to work with. Kristen is quite serious. Rob and Taylor are a little bit wild. Rob and Kristen are actually a couple in real life. When he\u2019s with her, he\u2019s a little more restrained. When she\u2019s not around, like most guys when their wives or girlfriends aren\u2019t around, he\u2019s a little looser. Taylor\u2019s a kid\u2014he\u2019s 19\u2014so he was bouncing all over the place.\n\nClick here for a sneak peek at the sets of the upcoming Twilight movie."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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