Entertainment Weekly: Hollywood Insider talks to the director of Amanda’s newest project The Girl With the Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke, about the movie.

There is nothing director Catherine Hardwicke likes more than casting new talent. The woman responsible for propelling Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson’s careers into the stratosphere has now cast two unknowns in her upcoming project for Warner Bros., Red Riding Hood starring Amanda Seyfried. Shiloh Fernandez (pictured, top) will play Peter, the edgy bad boy from the wrong side of town who attracts Seyfried’s character, and Max Irons (pictured, bottom) will play Henry, the refined son of the wealthy blacksmithing family who is engaged to marry Seyfried. The final decision to cast the two teenagers competing for Seyfried’s affection came after Hardwicke held a two-day “smack-down” where she brought eight young actors to a Hollywood sound stage and had them compete for the part. “It was wild,” says the director, reminiscing about the 21 hours of tape she culled from the intense two-day try-out. “We had eight guys all competing with each other for two parts. They all read with Amanda and they also had to do fight scenes with each other. It was kinda good to get their aggression out.”

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