Both Paxton and Hunt had expressed interest in making a sequel to “Twister” over the years, but their projects never got off the ground. On Feb. 25, 2017, Paxton died after complications of a heart surgery.
Fortunately, his son James Paxton, who was just over a year old when his dad made the first movie, is now an actor, too, and landed a role in “Twisters,” playing a disgruntled motel patron in a key scene.
“Having James agree to have a cameo in this film was incredible — just to have him and have some kind of spiritual connection to Bill on the set with us,” Chung says.
Paxton told Variety he auditioned for the role, but once he got the offer, he and his family had to consider the emotional implications of joining the sequel. Ultimately, it felt like the right thing to honor his father’s legacy and a project that’d been special to him.
“This one is for him and for ‘Twister’ fans. I thought that it was really cool of them to find some way to incorporate that,” James Paxton said. “I wanted to be a conduit for Dad’s spirit. I wish he was the one here to be appearing in this new chapter instead of me, but I’m happy to do it.”
Once on set, he also discovered an interesting connection to Powell.
“Glen had worked with my dad before [on the 2013 indie ‘Red Wing’] and had a couple funny stories he told me,” Paxton shared. ”Then, somehow ‘Spy Kids 3’ came up, and Glen said, ‘This was my first movie ever,’ and I go, ‘That was my first movie ever.’ I was nine years old visiting Dad on the set, and it was Robert Rodriguez’s idea that throw me in as this junior version [of Bill Paxton’s character].”
The Paxtons aren’t the movie’s only family ties: Powell’s parents, Glen Sr. and Cyndy, make a cameo in the rodeo scene (they’ve had a bit part in many of the actor’s movies and are seated directly behind him and Edgar-Jones). Plus, his sister Leslie Powell sings the national anthem to kicks off the star-spangled sequence.
In the same scene, there’s a background actor seated to next to Edgar-Jones who told Chung that she appeared in his breakout film, Oscar nominee “Minari.”
“I was really glad for that,” Chung says. “But then she said, ‘And I was in the original ‘Twister.’”
Turns out the extra had also appeared in an emotional scene where Hunt’s Jo surveys the wreckage of the small town of Wakita and catches a glimpse of a mother, father and their young daughter who reminds her of her own (before her father was swept away in that film’s traumatic prologue).
“That was not us trying to do that. That just happened,” the filmmaker adds excitedly. “What a coincidence? That was insane!”
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