peter facinelli was not originally cast as carlisle cullen. "[hardwicke] liked me, but there was another actor that the studio was pushing for", facinelli said. for unknown reasons, that actor was not able to play the part and facinelli was selected in his place. the choice of ashley greene to portray alice cullen was the subject of fan criticism due to greene being taller than her character as described in the novel. meyer had also stated that rachael leigh cook resembled her vision of alice. nikki reed had previously worked with hardwicke on "thirteen", which they wrote together, and "lords of dogtown". reed commented, "i don't want to say it's a coincidence, because we do work well together, and we have a great history. i think we make good work, but it's more that the people that hire [hardwicke] to direct a film of theirs [have] most likely seen her other work."