About Laurent...

in the book, I think Stephenie Meyer described Laurent as olive toned. I think it was at the MTV Spoilers event last November when a person asked Edi about that. And he wasn't offended. He just plainly said and joked that he was "black olive-toned" haha And I agree. If they are black and a vampire, he isn't gonna get pasty white. But in New Moon, they did a wonderful job with making Laurent look more pasty. I loved the makeup they had for him. I was very impressed. :)

YEAH, I DONT GET THAT EITHER!!!!!

It does make sense. Even though he becomes a vampire, his race isn't going to change so if he is black, he will just be a pasty colour. He gets lighter coloured but his race won't change.

yes

he's not michael jackson he can't turn pastey white he's jamaican by soul

I think it's mainly because they needed to be diverse. The majority of the characters are relatively white (a.k.a. fall into the caucasian group), except for Eric (which I found random) and a few other people. They needed to have a black person in there as well.

come on! its not like only white people can be vampires. there skin would be ashy maybe

i think that it's equality rights or something. film directors and producers have to sign a contract that doesn't condone racsim by having a variety of races in their films. even if it is only one other race, they still have to have someone in there

I think the vampire's skin color depends on his/her ethnicity. All of the Cullens are Caucasian (white), so after each of their transformations, their skin not only remained light but became lighter, and therefore exceedingly pale.

With Laurent however, who I'm guessing is African American, since his skin color is biologically dark, it will stay that way after his transformation.

Sorry if this was confusing to read, I'm not that focused today. xD