iRateFilms had the chance to sit down with two supporting actors from Twilight this weekend. Edi Gathegi, starring as Laurent, the nomadic vampire with panache and lethal class and Taylor Lautner, who steps into the pawprints of lycanthrope Jacob Black joined us at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Miami.
Edi Gathegi was a fountain of behind the scenes knowledge as he explained how he prepared for his vampire role. “Stephenie Meyer did a great job of really setting this world up and justifying all the ways that vampires could truly exist in our world and one of the things that I considered was that a vampire doesn’t have blood flowing through their body, they don’t sleep or eat, and live forever, so when you think about it a vampire doesn’t even have to blink, like every human effort is a thought out thing. ”
He went on to describe how his counterpart vampire rivals, the Cullens, had to study humans in order to know what to do, but for Laurent, a traditional vampire, “everything was effortless, and the more still I could be, the more vampire I became, every move was intentional and deliberate.”
When asked what one thing he would choose to feast on solely to survive, Edi replied without hesitation, with a youthful exuberance, “Ice Cream.” Taylor Lautner chimed in on his right, “Jessica Alba”, which earned a round of laughs.
Taylor said he had to give up one of his passions, football, last year because he was missing too many practices, and you could see he really was upset about losing that side of his life, by his enthusiastic description of the positions he played, “running back, slot receiver and strong safety on D,” you could feel the 16 year old in him wanting to strap on some pads and just be the high school football stud again.
But now he is Jacob Black, best friend to Bella Swan, as he describes his werewolf role as challenging and enjoys the duality of the character. Still, you can tell by his attitude and acceptance of the industry that he is going to be around for a long time. He hopes to work with Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg in the future, as he “looks up to their careers” and enjoys action movies. Of course Taylor lists Jessica Alba as choice numero uno for female leads. Gathegi could think of many actors, but Daniel Day Lewis was the first one to come to mind when asked who he would prefer to work with in the future.
Both young actors wanted to give strong thanks to the support they have received from the Twilight fans, and specifically the Twilight moms, as they feel the Twilight moms are as big a fan base as the tweens so oft pictured in my mind before hearing about Twilight. It was news to me that four of the books have been on the NYTs best seller list for a combined 91 weeks; I have been following HBO’s True Blood and felt that Twilight was more an adolescent affair, even Lautner said he hadn’t heard of the books prior to auditioning, but after his audition, his manager told him, this is gonna be a big thing.
I think I would have to agree, Gathegi said the same thing when asked if he had read the novels, and he is now a self-proclaimed Twi-guy and was really excited about working with Director Catherine Hardwicke and author Stephenie Meyer. What really intrigues me about the whole Twilight phenomenon is that Stephenie Meyer was just an ordinary mom, with an extraordinary imagination. She took an idea that was taken from an unfinished dream where she woke up wanting to “know how it ended” and has created what will probably be the biggest movie legend for this new generation.
I wanted to ask each of the young actors how they felt about being involved in their generation’s Lost Boys, as I remember the impact and cult following that film had on my generation, but we ran out of time and were not even allowed to get pictures, the two were heading to a mall in South Beach to be swarmed by hordes of mad Twilight followers. I shook both their hands and said it was great to meet them, almost as if to say, nice knowing ya guys, I don’t envy the waves upon waves of screaming tweens and Twi-moms you are about to face in a few minutes. Ok, maybe I do a little.
So, if you haven’t read the books, find out how Stephenie’s dream will end, and check out Twilight in theaters Friday, November 21st.
