For a long time, I thought we were making a wood stain. Turns out we were headlining a concert! The first thing you notice at Mission Bell isn’t the wood, it’s the light.
Cold beams cut across the floor like stage rigs warming up before a show. The laser board hums, throwing sharp lines of red light across raw panels stacked like guitars waiting in the wings. Robotic arms swing like fans at a concert. Precise, rehearsed, never missing a cue. Then the blades start.
High-speed cutters scream through wood like a crowd hitting the first note of a set. Panels move, flip, align, everything in rhythm, everything on tempo. Sawdust lifts into the air and hangs there, a low fog drifting across the line like dry ice under a spotlight. It’s a performance. And it’s fast. Until it isn’t.
Because every show has a moment where the music drops out, and here, it happens at the stain booth. The lights are still on. The machines are still ready. The crowd is still screaming. But the chemistry slows everything down. Like long enough to leave the show.
Robots can’t outrun bad chemistry. In modern finishing lines, throughput isn’t limited by equipment anymore. It’s limited by cure kinetics.
Traditional stains take hours to flash. Then more time to cure. Then more layers. Then more time. The fans lose interest and move on. Then more time to topcoat. A floor full of machines built to move at the speed of lasers ends up waiting on molecules that haven’t caught up yet.
That’s the bottleneck. That’s where the music dies. Bye bye, Ms. American Pie.
We brought WeatherWood into that moment. Ran it through the booth. Let it play. Our stain flashed in 13 minutes. Our topcoat, because nothing off the shelf would hold our colors without killing them, cured in another 20. Thirty-three minutes, start to finish. The line didn’t stop.
After the test, someone at Mission Bell looked at the panels, then at the clock, and said: “Freeing up our bottleneck at that pace would let us do another building. But remember color is king.”
That line stays with you. Because it splits the problem clean in two.
The First Half: Throughput
Factories don’t wait on machines anymore. They wait on chemistry.
Cutting a process from hours down to 33 minutes doesn’t just save time. It rewrites capacity. It changes how many jobs you can take, how fast you can move, how much you can produce before the lights go out. Throughput is math.
The Second Half: Why It Matters
“The color was king.” Throughput gets you paid. Color gets you chosen. We didn’t build another version of oak, walnut, or amber. The category already has those. We built colors for how wood actually shows up now:
• feature walls that carry a room
• ceilings that define a space
• millwork that feels like architecture, not furniture
Carbon Timber. Heritage Gray. Driftwood. Reclamation. Black Bogwood. Names that don’t describe a color, they describe a moment.
Nobody walks into a space and says: “That’s a great polymer system.”
They say: “I want my place to feel like this.”
The chemistry is what makes that feeling repeatable. Durable. Fast.
But the feeling is what makes anyone care in the first place.
Where This Goes Next
We’re heading to the American Coatings Show in Indianapolis @Booth #3178.
We’ll bring the show, you bring your credit, cause its time to rock on… the color line. But we’re also working on something that sits just offstage.
Right now, finish decisions are made through samples, guesswork, and memory. You hold up a swatch. You imagine. You hope. If you think cure times are rough, try specifying colors. We’re building toward a different moment: The ability to see the finish on the actual surface, under the real light, before the can is opened.
Not as a gimmick. As a shift in where the decision gets made. Because once the result becomes predictable, the experience around it can change too.
If you’re at ACS 2026, come find us at Booth #3178.
If you’re running a line, building a space, or specifying a project, you already know the truth: The machines are ready. The systems are fast. It’s the chemistry that makes you believe the Elvis isn’t dead. The King is alive and vibrant with color.
Meet Becca Berger, a Silicon Valley-based CleanTech coatings inventor, who is using AI, VR, Apple Vision Pro, and solar power to disrupt paint and wood stains!☀️
Why Traditional Wood Stains are so Frustrating
For years, woodworkers and homeowners have quietly suffered through one of the most reliably frustrating experiences in DIY: trying to get wood stain to look the way they imagined it would.
“People open a can of stain expecting a simple weekend project,” says Becca Berger. “Then they end up sanding boards back down because the color developed unevenly, blotched, or dried differently from one piece to the next.”
The problem, Berger explains, is built into the chemistry. Traditional oil-based stains demand precise timing, careful technique, and years of experience that most homeowners simply don’t have. The result is a consistent stream of complaints across Reddit, woodworking forums, and DIY communities: blotchy finishes, streaking, and unpredictable color.
At the same time, tightening VOC regulations are putting increasing pressure on these legacy solvent-heavy formulas.
Those two forces, customer frustration and regulatory pressure, are now colliding at the perfect moment for a new approach. That convergence became the foundation for WeatherWash, Berger’s Silicon Valley-based CleanTech coatings company.
What's the Solution
"WeatherWash takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than relying on surface pigments, Berger’s formulation uses tannin-reactive chemistry that develops color through a controlled reaction inside the wood itself. Once the reaction completes, the color becomes stable, the wood effectively stops aging, delivering consistent color that won’t shift over time.
“The wood becomes part of the staining system,” Berger says. “Traditional stains fight the material. Ours works with it.”
The result is a one-coat, water-based stain that eliminates blotching, streaking, and the stressful timing issues that have plagued DIYers for decades. It’s already on shelves at major retailers nationwide, offering a cleaner, more predictable alternative to petroleum-based legacy products." 🦄
What's the Bigger Vision?
"The timing may be better than it looks. While major incumbents like Sherwin-Williams have reported their consumer brands group losing market share, participation in DIY home improvement has continued to grow. A new generation of homeowners wants the high-end Restoration Hardware look, but isn’t interested in spending Restoration Hardware money, or mastering professional-level finishing techniques.
WeatherWash sits directly in that gap: premium aesthetics delivered through a dramatically simpler, one-coat application that doesn’t require years of experience to get right.
Berger’s ambitions go well beyond the chemistry. She wants to make buying architectural coatings feel as frictionless as ordering a pizza. Today, the process is still maddeningly primitive. Consumers and contractors must navigate confusing websites and overwhelming data sheets, guess quantities, and hope the tiny swatch they chose will look right on their specific wood, all without any real confidence in the final result.
Her team is building an Apple Vision Pro platform designed to eliminate that uncertainty. Users scan their space, answer a few simple questions about the project, and see exactly how WeatherWash will look in their actual environment, before they ever hit “buy.”
What is the Difference Between CleanTech and Conventional Coatings?
"It’s ultimately an efficiency story, not just a sustainability story.
Traditional coatings were engineered around assumptions that no longer hold: inexpensive petroleum solvents, multi-coat workflows, long cure windows, and manufacturing systems designed before energy efficiency and emissions became major engineering constraints.
CleanTech Coatings follows a different methodology. It takes the category’s best-selling products and systematically reformulates them with cleaner chemistry, renewable inputs, and low- or zero-VOC processes, while reducing friction across the entire workflow. Fewer coats. Shorter dry times. Less labor. Lower energy demand in manufacturing.
“In manufacturing, efficiency and sustainability usually converge eventually,” Berger says. “If you can reduce unnecessary solvents, cut energy inputs, and simplify the workflow at the same time, the whole system gets better economically too.”
That convergence is the real point. WeatherWash isn’t positioned as a feel-good alternative. Berger believes it represents a more efficient industrial architecture for a category that hasn’t fundamentally changed in decades.”
How are You Building Demand Today?
"Right now, Berger is building a direct relationship with her audience through Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. But her real ambition is much larger. She wants to own the moment of specification, the critical point when a customer is deciding exactly what to buy.
That’s where Sherwin-Williams’ moat becomes their weakness. If WeatherWash can capture the customer at the moment they’re specifying color and materials, the traditional retail advantage begins to crumble.Their thousands of stores and sales reps are powerful, but only if the customer is willing to drive to a store. WeatherWash is betting that the next generation of digitally-savvy customers would rather configure their project in their living room using spatial computing than make a trip to the paint aisle."
Do CleanTech Coatings Perform as Well as Existing Products on the Shelf?
"Yes, in several measurable ways, WeatherWash outperforms many conventional stains.
A large portion of the category still relies on solvent-heavy chemistry linked to elevated VOC levels, Prop 65 warnings, and hour-scale dry and re-coat times. Independent PPG testing showed WeatherWash reaching a sub-13-minute dry time under controlled conditions, a meaningful edge over many products still on retail shelves.
At current scale, it carries a modest CleanTech premium, roughly 69 cents more per quart than Varathane at retail. Berger expects that gap to close as manufacturing volume grows and continuous-flow efficiencies improve, without sacrificing the fast dry time or application simplicity."
The Platform Strategy: Spatial Computing and the Future of Coatings
"Berger’s answer isn’t a marketing campaign. It’s a platform.
WeatherWash is betting that the next generation of digitally-savvy customers would rather configure their project in their living room using spatial computing than make a trip to the paint aisle. She is building a spatial-computing experience, beginning with Apple Vision Pro, that collapses the traditionally messy coatings decision process into a single, frictionless workflow. Instead of multiple trips to Home Depot and lingering uncertainty, a user scans the room. The system reads the existing wall color, wood tone, lighting, and surrounding materials, then renders accurate WeatherWash finishes directly onto cabinetry, flooring, or millwork in real time. Then the consumer gets on the Weatherwash App and orders the stain, just like people are ordering Tesla's through the app.
End game is a behavioral shift. The homeowner who finishes their first project successfully is far more likely to attempt a second one, photograph it, share it, and stay inside the ecosystem. Every completed project becomes marketing that reduces risk for the next buyer and creates a fly wheel effect."
Can you give me an example of how the product works?
A finisher can use a flood system, a spray gun, or a brush. Just wipe it on and let it dry. After an hour, top coat it and your project will be done one hour later. So, two hours total.
How did Weatherwash Get Started?
While she works, Berger tells me that two moments crystallized her thinking.
As a painter and furniture artist, she had grown increasingly frustrated with the wood-finishing systems available. “I could see the finish I wanted in my head,” she says, “but I couldn’t get the stain to give it to me.” The process required complicated techniques, strong solvents, long dry times, and too much trial and error.
She began writing about those experiences on her blog and started talking directly to readers. When she asked what they really wanted from wood stain, the answers surprised her. Color mattered, but ease of use, low odor, fast dry times, and feeling safe enough to use indoors mattered just as much.
That insight changed everything.
Berger realized the wood stain category had barely evolved in decades. It was still built around chemistry and application methods designed for professional finishers. She believed there was room for a fundamentally different approach, one built for modern DIYers using cleaner, lower-VOC chemistry and simpler application.
“My hypothesis is that customer demand will ultimately shape the entire product line,” Berger says as she uses an air compressor to mix raw ingredients inside a 330-gallon tote. “With each new SKU, margins improve and we move closer to broad products that fit the market.”
How do You Plan to Cross the Chasm?
"Wood stain sales are based on a commodity, so the lifetime value of a customer is attractive, but only if you can move beyond the early-adopter crowd. Berger’s plan for crossing Geoffrey Moore’s famous “chasm” is straightforward: make the product so good that the chemistry itself becomes the marketing.
The category has barely evolved since the turn of the millennium. Most major brands still sell products and run supply chains that would look familiar to a 1999 hardware-store manager. While every other consumer category, from cars to mattresses, has been remade by digital tools, configurators, and real-time feedback loops, wood stain has remained stubbornly analog. Even AI and spatial computing feel like science fiction in a world still dominated by tiny color swatches and data sheets.
That lag is exactly why the opportunity is so large.
Every successful project posted online becomes social proof. One DIYer finishes a piece on a Saturday, photographs the result, and shares it. The next person sees real-world evidence that the stain actually works on the first try. That reduces perceived risk and brings in the next buyer. Price parity helps lower the initial friction, but the decisive factor is experience: once someone gets the high-end finish they wanted in a single weekend without the usual hassle, they rarely go back to multi-step, solvent-heavy systems.
The products themselves accelerate the loop. Customers scan a QR code on the can and instantly access application videos, project examples, and recommendations for the next coating in the system.
Since 2022, WeatherWash has generated approximately $1.35 million in wood stain sales. The path forward is operational discipline, higher throughput, lower labor and material costs, careful distribution expansion, and keeping the unit economics healthy as the business scales."
How Big is the Coatings Market Opportunity?
“The U.S. architectural coatings market, paints, stains, and finishes sold through retail channels, is roughly a $20 billion business and continues to grow steadily. The wood stain segment alone is already a multi-billion-dollar category expanding alongside renovation activity, aging housing stock, and rising DIY participation.
But Berger believes the more important shift is behavioral.
The next generation of customers expects lower-friction purchasing, faster project completion, and predictable results without professional-level technique. That changes where growth concentrates.
WeatherWash is already positioned inside major retail ecosystems including Walmart, HomeDepot.com, Amazon, and Lowes.com, giving the company access to the same channels where category demand already exists.
Do You Have an Economic Model?
Berger's retail model is straight forward: [(price) x (number of skus) x (number of stores) x (number of shelves) x (inventory turns) ^ Brand] = Revenue.
"The real leverage comes from project compounding. One refinished end table often leads to the kitchen table, then walls, then exterior work, turning a single purchase into a high-lifetime-value customer. Growth hinges on expanding distribution, increasing shelf turns, and building trust so customers naturally move across the full product line."
Who is Your Core Customer?
"Berger’s target customer is the LOHAS (link) segment, Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability. These values-driven, educated consumers want high-end Restoration Hardware aesthetics without professional skill or harsh chemicals. They prioritize one-coat application, fast cure times, low odor, and low-VOC formulations, and they make purchasing decisions based as much on values as on price.
The LOHAS market is substantial. It represented roughly one-third of home purchases in 2020 and shows strong crossover between Walmart and Home Depot shoppers. The broader LOHAS consumer segment represented a $472.5 billion total addressable market as of 2022.
What is Your Biggest Hurdle?
"Distribution. For decades the major coatings companies have controlled retail shelf space through scale, operations, and entrenched channel relationships that are extremely difficult for smaller brands to replicate. That structural advantage compounds over time.
The market is shifting underneath that structure. Kelly Moore’s exit has released significant demand back into the channel, while several large players have shifted focus toward higher-margin specialty lines. At the same time, the next generation of DIY customers is more willing to discover new brands digitally and prioritize ease of use, low odor, and environmental profile over legacy familiarity.
At WeatherWash’s current stage, the challenge is reaching the scale where operational leverage kicks in. Price parity matters enormously once products move through thousands of doors. But Berger believes that once customers experience a dramatically simpler, more predictable finish, they begin to reevaluate the entire category, creating a genuine opening for newer chemistry."
What Constraints Are You Facing as You Scale?
Becca attributes her success to lessons she learned in her MBA operations class. She has capitalized off of continuous flow manufacturing (CFM) and just-in-time delivery (JIT) processes that she learned in MBA case studies.
"Warehouse capacity and price parity are the primary constraints.
WeatherWash has scaled from gallon milk jugs on an apartment deck to 330-gallon totes, with the next step being 15,000-gallon stainless steel vats. At current volume the product carries a CleanTech premium, $19.97 per quart versus competitors around $15.97–$19.39. One quart of WeatherWash typically replaces multiple quarts of traditional stain.
As manufacturing volume grows and continuous-flow efficiencies improve, Berger expects to close the retail price gap, potentially landing at $14.97 or better. At true price parity, she believes conversion will accelerate dramatically because customers will simply be choosing the superior product."
What Opportunities Do You See in Tighter Coatings Emissions Regulations?
"Regulation is already accelerating the shift from oil-based to water-based coatings. California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) and stricter local districts such as SCAQMD have imposed some of the nation’s toughest VOC limits on architectural coatings and wood stains for years, forcing legacy manufacturers to reformulate or exit parts of the market.
Berger sees even greater upside if policymakers use positive incentives instead of just mandates. “Imagine if states required 25% of paint and stain sold to be carbon-free, the same way they require renewable energy on the grid,” she says. That single policy would cut emissions at two critical points: plant manufacturing and VOC off-gassing during application.
CleanTech formulations like WeatherWash are already engineered for exactly this regulatory environment."
Where is the Real Innovation?
"In Silicon Valley they like to say it’s not the product, it’s the category builder. In this category, the market has determined that my products have value. I've learned that how the product is delivered also contributes to how the customer weighs value and so my products will be available online. I think e-commerce will continue to have gains over brick and mortar. Also, it's how the product is communicated. More interestingly, how the clients communicate back through reviews and social media sharing."
How Does Your Manufacturing Process Differ from Sherwin Williams'?
"When Berger began designing WeatherWash’s manufacturing process, she kept returning to a line from Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: to materially reduce emissions, cleaner chemistry, cleaner manufacturing, and scalable systems all have to evolve together.
That became her operating constraint.
Legacy manufacturers like Sherwin-Williams still rely on decades-old, solvent-heavy, fossil-fuel-intensive processes. Berger took a different path. She developed a waterborne system that eliminates most VOC-heavy solvents while maintaining performance. She integrated direct solar-thermal energy into the batch process itself to reduce energy intensity where the chemistry actually happens. And she insisted on proving the model could work at commercial scale, not just in the lab, WeatherWash is already in retail distribution, including Walmart.
Berger believes the next generation of coatings companies will scale differently: through lower-energy chemistry, more efficient manufacturing systems, and products designed around sustainability from the beginning rather than retrofitted later."
Weatherwash Plant
Becca tosses what looks like herbs into a large plastic tote, pinching a little of this and folding in a little of that with a wooden oar while air compressors pulse in the background. The operation feels strangely analog and futuristic at the same time, part chemistry lab, part workshop, part production line.
Are your Materials Renewable?
"WeatherWash’s formulas use renewable and lower-impact raw materials where they make technical sense. The manufacturing process is designed around low-energy inputs, including direct solar-thermal heating.
Berger tracks performance by measuring gallons produced per unit of energy consumed, a practical metric for energy intensity. The chemistry itself is waterborne and engineered for significantly lower VOC exposure than traditional solvent-heavy stains.
As the company scales, the next step is third-party lifecycle analysis to validate the full environmental footprint with independent data rather than internal estimates. The goal is simple: continue reducing energy intensity, VOCs, and process emissions on the path to a genuinely lower-carbon manufacturing model."
Circling back to the stain, your product is truly magic in a quart, but your operation is next level. You said that you use the power of the sun to make the product.
How Do you Use Solar Power in the Manufacturing Process?
Berger is less interested in simply putting solar panels on the roof than in using solar energy inside the actual manufacturing process itself.
Instead of relying solely on electric or fossil-fuel heating, she uses direct solar-thermal input to help heat and process batches inside the vessel. The formulation and process are engineered to retain heat efficiently, which reduces the amount of external energy required during production.
As the company scales, automation and additional energy infrastructure, both conventional and solar, will support higher throughput and tighter process control. The larger goal is to build a manufacturing system that gradually reduces reliance on fossil-energy inputs at both the process and facility level.
“That’s what the next generation of coatings manufacturing looks like,” Berger says. “Lower-energy chemistry, lower-emission processing, and systems designed around efficiency from the beginning rather than retrofitted afterward.”
How do Efficiencies Drive Real CleanTech?
"Efficiencies are what separate real CleanTech from green marketing.
The built environment drives a large share of global carbon emissions, so Berger focuses on five areas: raw materials, workspace efficiency, energy use, labor, and plant operations. Her goal is straightforward, maximize output while minimizing energy, waste, and process friction.
She currently tracks the operation at roughly 78% process efficiency. As scale increases, some efficiencies will temporarily compress before improving again through automation and refinement."
If you had One Wish, What Would it Be?
"Distribution at the speed the chemistry deserves.”
The product is ready. The application is straightforward. The customer response is real. The only thing holding WeatherWash back, Berger says, is scale, getting the product in front of the next generation of DIY customers where they’re already shopping.
In coatings, distribution compounds. Every additional retail door increases visibility, lowers logistics costs, improves manufacturing efficiency, and strengthens repeat purchase behavior.
If she could accelerate one thing tomorrow, it would be thoughtful retail expansion. The chemistry is already there, it just needs the shelf space to match it."
What Would you Give Up?
"Take a look around you. Everything I have here is for sale, including things you can’t see, like equity.”
She glances at a tote that’s beginning to overflow and laughs.
“Hang tight, it looks like my staff is overflowing a tote. I gotta go. Are we done here?”
*****
That's a wrap.
I’m surprised Becca can even hear me over the air compressors, shouting, and constant lid hammering. She stays laser-focused on the batch, answering every question despite being interrupted constantly by managers and employees. This isn’t a pitch deck, it’s a real operation.
Here’s what a coatings strategist would take away from a day at WeatherWash:
The chemistry is real. A tannin-reactive, waterborne stain with a controlled-stop reaction is a genuine technical differentiator. Getting the reaction to consistently stop at the right color across different wood species and moisture levels is the hard part, and the moat.
The manufacturing is real. Using solar-thermal energy to directly heat batches inside the tote, tracking 78% process efficiency today with a target of 92% at scale, these numbers will need diligence, but the operation itself is credible.
The brand franchise is striking. With over 31,000 Instagram followers, more than both Minwax and Varathane, she’s built an organic LOHAS audience with zero paid acquisition. That kind of community compounds over time.
The platform is still a roadmap. The room-scan visualization, AI recommendations, and rendered-in-place previews are where she’s headed. The chemistry is the wedge; the platform only works because the chemistry already delivers.
The category is at an inflection point. Legacy DIY brands are flat or declining while DIY participation is rising. The next generation is forming preferences online and through spatial computing. The brands they choose now are the ones they’ll buy from for decades.
In short: WeatherWash is the chemistry. Spatial computing is the infrastructure finally catching up.
An incumbent can try to replicate the chemistry, rebuild the community, and retrain the customer, or they can acquire it already working. The real question isn’t whether WeatherWash fits inside a coatings portfolio. It’s whether a coatings portfolio can afford not to have it.
“Paging Doctor Cullen, you have an interview with Zack and Becca, writers for the blog From Gardners 2 Bergers. Report to Forever Twilight in Forks (FTF), Washington, STAT!”
“I’m on it!” Peter Facinelli says, as he takes his seat under a pine gazebo at the Pacific Inn Motel, in Forks, Washington.
Peter is here signing books and taking pictures at the Forever Twilight in Forks Festival. He's incredibly genuine. Friendly and easily approachable. To the west, the sun is setting and the colors are breath taking. To the east, the clouds have lost their place in the gray sky. They settle into the towering evergreens that crowd the rolling hills behind Peter and add an eerie effect. We are literally sitting down with a Vampire in his home town. He is wearing an Aviator Nation sweatshirt. He pulls his hoody over his head and asks, “so what do you do?”
Zack: “My wife invented a wood stain that turns raw wood into barnwood.” I expect Peter to show zero interest.
Peter: “Really? You take raw wood and it kind of ages it?” Peter asks with way more interest than I expected.
Becca: “It’s an all-natural process, you just apply the stain to raw wood and you can see one hundred percent of the wood grain,” Becca says as she’s said in hundreds of interviews.
The interview has taken an unexpected turn.Peter is interviewing us, instead of us interviewing Peter. What’s going on here?
P: “How long does it take to get that old look?” Peter wonders.
B: “Takes about ten minutes and it’s ready for a topcoat. Your whole project can be done in under an hour. It’s a tannin-based reactive stain, earth-friendly and VOC free!” Becca beams, super proud of her creation.
P: “I love doing woodworking. I grew up doing carpentry with my Uncle. I did that during the summers. I could build anything out of wood. I could build this gazebo. Recently, I did a birdcage with a sliding door,” Peter leans forward. He’s holding the birdcage between his empty hands, somehow, we can all see it. As he goes on, we learn that he’s quite the woodworker and a knowledgeable finisher. “You know this is a billion-dollar idea right?”
Bec smiles and nods, “We did just get into Walmart!”
Z: “You know Peter, you’re an extraordinary guy who seems remarkably ordinary,” I say, as we settle into our woodworking comfort zone.
P: “That’s great! It’s good to be ordinary.” He says as he scrolls through our portfolio, he friend-requests Rebecca.
She accepts. They’re "fast" friends.
Z: “Ok, so you’re going to be our celebrity endorser?” I ask.
P: “Maybe!” Peter smiles and winks.
Z: “Great! So you’re a finisher in real life, a vampire doctor, a human doctor, a special forces operator, a Sheriff in the old west, and many other things in the make-believe world of Hollywood.”
Peter nods.
Z: “What does nine-to-five look like for you?”
P: “Constant change. Lots of preparation. Tons of research.”
Z: “So you’re from Queens, NYC.”
P: “Yes!”
Z: “You have three siblings. Where do you rank?”
P: “I'm last.”
Z: “Three older sisters? That's more Barbies than G.I. Joe's. #Roughbro. Your parents are from Italy?”
P: “Yep.”
Z: “Your mother is from, Spormaggiore, how do you pronounce that?”
Peter annunciates the town without missing a beat. Even though I speak Italian, I butcher it. Curse that double ‘g.’
Z: “Your father is from Trentino?”
P: “Yeah.”
Z: “It’s pretty cool that they were so close to fair Verona when they fell in love.”
Peter nods, “I never thought about that. But yeah, both of their towns are right there in Val Di Non Valley, Northern Italy.”
B: “We visited Verona, so we got to see what the countryside looks like.”
P: “It’s a beautiful country.”
Z: “Take us back to high school at Saint Francis Preparatory, what was your best moment in high school.
Peter shuffles. His face wrinkles as though he’s just licked a lemon, “high school wasn’t a good time for me. I was incredibly shy and I didn’t want to eat lunch with the other kids. So, I found a quite place where a woman sold pretzels and orange juice and that was my, uhm… my lunch every day for three years.”
‘Peter shy? Are you kidding me?’ I think.
Z: “Did you play a sport?”
P: “Baseball.”
Z: “That’s ironic.” I’m thinking back to the Twilight baseball game.
P: “There was this one game, I quit the high school team because the coach was a jerk and so I played for another team. There was this one play where the bases were loaded, there was only a few minutes left on the clock in the last inning and I hit a home run. We were tied up and that home run won the game. The old coach saw the play and realized his mistake.” Peter smiles.
B: “We saw a game with the Rangers and Red Sox just like that. It was nail-biting.”
Z: “Who is your favorite sports team?”
P: “Yankees.”
Z: “Who is your favorite player?”
P: “Babe Ruth. He would point where he was going to hit the ball and then hit it there. That was incredible.”
Z: “So you’re in high school, headed to college at New York University. At what point did you decide to become an actor?”
P: “For me it was much sooner. It was when I was thirteen, the topic of career came up with my family and I told my parents I wanted to be an actor. They didn’t discourage me, in fact, they encouraged me.”
Bec and I look at each other, completely shocked. Why? When I told my Mom I wanted to be an actor she said, “go to college first and act on the side.”
P: “I never had a back up plan because I was taught that if you have a back up plan, that becomes the plan.”
Peter is right, Momma! I ended up using my degree and not acting >:-/
Z: “When Bec and I lived in Italy, all these Italian fathers had interesting sayings for their sons. One that we liked the most was, ‘better to buy a suit than a glass of water.’ Does your Dad have any cool sayings?”
P: “No. Not really.”
B: “Your parents must be incredibly proud of you.”
P: “Actually, that’s the funny thing, my Dad and I are on this plane with all these actors that have lesser roles than me at the time and he’s like, ‘do you think Peter will make it?’ My parents are immigrants, so they just don’t get how far I’ve come. In fact, my Dad was like, ‘Peter, if you don’t make it in Hollywood, that’s okay. I love you and I will always have a room for you in my home.’”
Bec and I look at each other. We’ve never met this man, but we love him!
Z: “Well there you go Peter. You’re Dad’s Italian saying is, ‘There’s a room for you in my house, son.”
B: “So you studied acting in college. Was there one specific method that you preferred over another?”
Peter has a lot to say about this. If any of you thought acting was just memorizing lines and shooting ten second scenes, think again. There’s voice training. Stage acting. Camera acting. And the two are not the same. Peter lists a dozen books and several methods that contribute to his “craft”. Clearly his education at NYU has paid off. His performance takes audiences to a different world. A world where admittance is belief. He’s so passionate about his craft, he spends forty minutes talking about it. By the end of his answer Bec and I are blown away with how much mechanical aptitude it takes to create a convincing character.
B: “So I recently watched ‘The Vanished,’ how did you come up with that idea?”
P: “A couple of years ago, I got into RV-ing. I took my family across America and we stopped in all these really cool little towns. One of the towns we stopped in, this guy at the counter let me know that the prison nearby had a convict escape and a manhunt was under way. For a brief moment, I lost track of one of my kids, and found them, but I thought, ‘what if this man had found my daughter and kidnapped her? That would be terrifying.’ I didn’t get much sleep that night because of the fear I felt and I couldn’t shake the feeling so I caught it on film.”
Z: “You had a lot of success with that. How many people viewed it on Netflix?”
P: “Two hundred million.”
B: “TWO HUNDRED MILLION? That’s two thirds of the nation’s population. What was the budget?”
P: “One and a half million.”
Z: “You got two hundred million people to watch a film you wrote, directed, and acted in on a one and a half million-dollar budget?”
P: “Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”
Z: “Yeah! I’d imagine you’re a hot item in Hollywood. Directors like you are like snow leopards.”
P: “What do you mean?”
Z: “Snow Leopards are rarely seen, but they exist. Well look at Spielberg for example. He almost didn’t have a career because he kept going over budget. If it wasn’t for George Lucas bringing him on for Indiana Jones, Spielberg’s career might have died early. So, a guy that can generate that kind of viewership with a small budget must be rare, but exist.”
P: “We’ll see. It’s all kind of fresh still,” he says relaxed and un-phased. Like I said, an extraordinary man that seems abnormally ordinary.
B: “Can we talk about Twilight now?”
P: “Of course!”
B: “How did you get the part?”
P: “That is a funny story. I auditioned and so did this other guy, Henry Cavill, and it looked like he got the part of Carlisle Cullen. As I was doing my research, I stumbled on a book titled, “History of the Vampire.” Since I didn’t get the part, I thought I could help Catherine Hardwick out and maybe network for the future. I wrote a quick note in the book and sent it to her. When the part didn’t work out with the other guy, she got my note and called me. So I got the part because I gave Catherine a $29.99 book.”
B: “How did you prepare for the role of Doctor Carlisle Cullen?”
P: “I did a lot of research. I even kept these journals and that’s all part of the craft right? When I prepare for a role, I want to know as much about the character as I can. Learning about what doctors do wasn’t so hard, but what required a little more intense research was what a doctor might wear throughout the years. As I was doing my research, I kind of felt like Carlisle would have had an interest in scarves. I traced the fashion of scarves back to his era and incorporated those scarves into my character. I was using it as a thread through time to tie in the history of his life together through out the film.”
B: “Can we shop Doctor Cullen Scarves?”
P: “That’s an interesting idea, I’ll have to think about it.”
Z: "You should post the journals online. I know a lot of fans in the Facebook groups would love that."
P: "I'll look into that. It would be nice for them to experience Carlisle Cullen's view of 'Twilight' right?"
B: “Are you still in touch with the cast?”
P: “Yes! Definitely! We all keep in contact with each other. Nikki and I just worked on a project together, and we all text each other often. We kind of grew up together in Hollywood, you know.”
B: “What’s your favorite story about your son, Edward?”
P: “When I first met Rob, he had all these hair extensions. For some reason, they wanted him to have long hair. And I noticed he was kind of pulling on them. The next day, he had pulled all of his hair extensions out and he was like, ‘I’m not doing it, okay! I’m using my natural hair.'”
B: OMG, this reminds me of when Anna Kendrick called him "the hair," in Breaking Dawn Part 1.
Z: “In your own words, how would you describe Twilight?”
P: “It’s the modern Romeo and Juliet, right?”
Z: In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, 'if only we could rewind the clock to Juliet’s house which is actually in “fair” Verona, Italy, not far from Peter's parents home towns. I’m wondering if Peter's ancestors knew he was in a modern Romeo and Juliet love story, what would they think?' By the way 'Trivial Pursuit' readers, Capulet was a real family name! (Below you can see some pictures of her balcony that we took in 2019.)
P: (Continued) Twilight is a great love story that incorporates forbidden love between a vampire and a young girl that every girl wants to be. But the best part of this story is that it brings fans together from all across the world. They form these relationships that they otherwise wouldn’t have and it was such a great experience to be a part of it.”
B: I’m not sure if Peter has seen the map in the Fork's Visitor Center, but people from across the world have placed a pin on the map and you can see below just how many people have been affected by "Twilight". Keep in mind, they traveled from these states and countries to physically place their pin.
Z: “If you had an unlimited budget, what movie would you make? Who would direct it? Who would star in it?”
P: “Oh that’s easy, I’d do a gangster movie. Something like Scarface. I would star in it. I would direct it.”
B: “Are you excited about fashion?”
P: “I’m not a snob or anything. I like form and function. Comfort is ideal."
Z: “Do you have a favorite artist?”
P: Rene Magritte.
B: “Do you have any cool Dad sayings for your kids?”
P: “Believe in yourself and follow your dreams!”
Z: “You’ve been to Italy and across America, do you have a favorite architect?”
P: “I like Spanish style. I like how architecture changes across the country. Even the brick color changes. I like Modern, too. I like Frank Lloyd Wright. I really like Frank Gehry, he did the Disney Concert Hall in L.A. I love what he does.”
Z: “Halloween is fast approaching. What scary movies are you watching and what are you dressing up as?”
P: “I don’t watch scary movies. They give me nightmares. The costume is a hard one for me. I feel like I have ideas of what I’m going to dress up like and then Halloween comes and I never know what I’m going to wear. Can I get back to you on that one?”
Z: “Wanna do a scary picture together?”
P: “Sure!”
Z: “Let's do wolf claws! Roooaaarrr!”
Z: “Peter! Bec and I did wolf claws, what are you doing?”
P: “Smoldering wolf claws.”
B: “Do you have a favorite movie that you’ve been in?”
P: “I have really enjoyed all the films I’ve worked in. I love them all. I can’t really pick one over the other.”
Z: “What’s your favorite app?”
P: “I like Instagram. I have a love hate relationship with TikTok. It’s so entertaining, people do the stupidest things on there, I just can’t stop watching it. There are such quick little segments you could just scroll forever.”
Z: “What’s your favorite video game?”
P: “I don’t play video games. I grew up on Atari. But Oculus goggles in VR is pretty cool. You feel like you’re there.”
Z: “What’s your favorite tech?”
P: “Crypto.”
Z: “What do you do for a workout?”
P: “Honestly, I do P90X. It requires very little space and they mix the work outs up so you don’t get bored. I love the Kenpo Karate. Now I work with a trainer though.”
Z: “Your arms are looking pretty big bro, got any tips on beefing up biceps?”
P: “Ha! Ha! No, I actually have to tell my trainer to tone it down. Honestly, it’s all genetics. I have 'guido' arms. I have those Italian American arms and like, I have to be careful not to work out my biceps too much because if I wear a button up shirt they puff up and fill out the shirt. It’s just genetics, I don’t have to work them out.” He shrugs nonchalantly.
B: “Who is your celeb look alike?”
Now this cracks both of us up. Peter literally buries his face in his hands, and for the first time during this interview, I see the shy kid he was talking about in high school. When he looks up, he’s literally blushing and so flustered he can’t speak.
P: “I don’t know man, I used to get Tom Cruise. Who do you think?”
Z: “Ethan Hawk.”
P: “I’ll take it.”
Z: “What do you think, Becca?”
B: “I don’t think you look like anyone. I think you have a very unique look.”
P: “I like that better!”
With that, the interview is over. The weather has shifted and true to its reputation, Forks is the wettest place in America. The temperature drops. Cold rain dumps on us. Two hours of friendly conversation has made us all cold ones and fast friends. Bec and I jump in the car, crank the heater, and wonder how exactly three Italians ended up on the farthest western point of North America. But that’s the beauty of Twilight.
To Peter’s point Twilight brings people together from all parts of the world and they make connections they otherwise wouldn’t have. This happens in book lines. Movie lines. FTF lines. It’s the spirit of Twilight that Peter helped build. And twelve years later the bonds are still being forged. Even with fans and actors. Thanks, Peter, for the interview and thanks to Stephenie Meyer for an awesome love story!
