Alright, Twilight fans, we’re here to answer all your questions about imprinting! It’s no secret that Jacob Black imprints on Edward Cullen and Bella Swan’s daughter, Renesmee Cullen, but what exactly does that mean? Prepare yourselves for a total breakdown.

As fans know, the Twilight Saga told the romantic love story of normal teen Bella and vampire Edward. The five film series was based on the books of the same name by Stephanie Meyer and starred some pretty big names like Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Taylor Lautner, Elizabeth ReaserJackson Rathbone and Kellan LutzActress Mackenzie Foy joined the cast as Renesmee in the final two movies.

The phenomenon of imprinting was introduced to fans by the werewolves. When it came to bringing the story line of Jacob and Renesmee to the big screen, even Taylor — who played Jacob — needed some help wrapping his head around how it would go down.

“That was … tough,” the actor told Collider in 2011 of the imprinting scene. “Because what is imprinting? What do you look like when you imprint? I mean, those were all the questions going through my head. Luckily, we had Stephanie on set the entire time, and trust me I asked her a million times, ‘OK, explain to me one more time what imprinting is exactly?’ and ‘Did you ever envision what Jacob looks like … what is he doing when he’s imprinting?'”

He continued, “It was very, very confusing. So there was a lot of conversation about that. And then it didn’t help that when we filmed it, they put an X on a wall and said, ‘This is Renesmee. You’re going to walk in the room, you’re going to look at the X and you’re going to imprint.’ And I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It was tough, it really was. But now after seeing the final version, I’m really happy with it. It’s emotional. They did a really good job with bringing back cool flashbacks and tying in a voiceover. So it really is a special moment, but on the day it was a leap of faith.”

Thankfully, it all worked out in the end! After Jacob imprinted on Renesmee, he protected and looked after her like a guardian. Still confused? Scroll through our gallery for a full breakdown of imprinting and how exactly it went down in Twilight. 

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