Going From Fangs to Folklore

"Welcome to our crack house," Ms. Hardwicke, 55, said as she showed a reporter around the space that she and her team have inhabited since last September, when they wrapped principal photography on the film in Vancouver.

In reality, it was harder to pull off. "I'm very hands-on and I put a zillion details into every scene," she said. Bella, the character played by Kristen Stewart, who falls in love with the vampire played by Robert Pattinson, "wears my personal shoes. She wears my t-shirt. The treetops scene—that was my idea. [The novel's author] Stephenie Meyer gave me freedom to do what I wanted to do. The directors of the sequels, they didn't have the time and the freedom like I did."

Making "Red Riding Hood," of course, had a similar effect on her. "We had this very tough post-production schedule and we were working 24/7," Ms. Hardwicke, who was wearing skinny jeans, a blazer and sneakers, explained as she pointed out a few ducks in a little moat. "I'd come out here and touch a tree. And there'd be a tour bus driving by saying, 'Look, there's the director of 'Twilight' crying by a tree,' and I'd dive in the bushes."

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