Taylor Lautner :: Werewolves, vampires and finishing high school

The previous Twilight film, New Moon, converted a lot of people to Team Jacob. The books cultivate a rivalry between fans who think Bella should choose the vampire Edward or the werewolf Jacob, played by Hollywood's latest hunk Taylor Lautner. On screen, Lautner packed on muscle, which was on display as Jacob usually appears shirtless due to werewolves' extremely high body temperature.

It was a mixed blessing though, because Lautner had to keep it up for the third film, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and now two more as Breaking Dawn gears up. "Occasionally you really want some ice cream for sure," Lautner admitted. "You'll cheat a time or two. When it comes closer to filming or when you have a magazine photo shoot then you really just have to stay strong and cut it out. The most interesting thing I found is it's just as hard to maintain it as it was to put it on in the first place. Trust me, it was really hard putting it on and it's just as hard keeping it. If I am really busy and can't get into the gym or if I'm busy and don't have time to eat, it just loses like that and it takes 10 times the amount of time to put it back on again so it's tough."

Hunky rivalry

In Eclipse, Bella (Kristen Stewart) is planning to marry Edward (Robert Pattinson) and have him turn her into a vampire. Jacob has one last shot to vie for her affection. The film even has some fun with the hunky rivalry. When someone needs to keep Bella warm in the freezing mountains, Jacob volunteers, claiming rightfully, "I'm hotter than you."

"Keeping the straight face was the tough thing," Lautner laughed. "That was another line I loved when I read it, but I was like, 'This is going to be so hard to deliver and especially with a straight face.' I was looking Rob in the eyes and he's starring at me with that Edward look."

Edward and Jacob are keeping Bella safe while a vampire war is brewing. Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) is making an army of newborn vampires to kill Bella, so the werewolves and vampires team up to fight her. The heroes, however, sit out.

"I was actually bummed," Lautner said. "There's a lot more action in this picture, but for me when there's any action going on I'm a wolf, so I was bummed I wasn't involved in too much of it."

The romantic subplot has its benefits though. "I got to kiss Bella for the first time so that was probably the biggest thing. "Bella is a fantastic kisser. That was probably the most exciting new thing. After every single take, Kristen would literally, we'd release and she'd look at me and say, 'Taylor, we just kissed.' Yeah, we did, so yeah it was definitely different, but it was exciting for Jacob to have the opportunity to kiss Bella finally."

Overnight megastar

The Twilight Saga has made Lautner a megastar. He'd worked steadily in kids movies and TV shows, but now he's attached to action movies and superhero franchises. "This franchise has been such an incredible platform. It's amazing. I'm so thankful for this franchise and the opportunity. I've had the time of my life the last two years and I'm just so thankful to be in this position now. I'm having fun making movies. It's great. I've met a lot of cool new people and had the opportunity to work with a lot of new talented people and amazing is the best word for it."

The next movie Lautner will film is the thriller Abduction. A movie version of the Hasbro toy Stretch Armstrong is being developed for Lautner to star. He's also was featured in the ensemble romantic comedy, in Valentine's Day earlier this year.

"It's kind of a gut instinct. It's whatever I'd want to watch. You read a lot of scripts and whenever you can finish one and you really love it. It's all based on story and the character. I want to challenge myself to many different things. I definitely don't want to stay on one road so I try to change it up."

Having your choice of A-list material is one of the benefits of being a star at 18. Lautner manages to stay positive about his prospects and stay away from the hype. "It definitely is [important] surrounding yourself with your family and the friends that you've known forever. I live, all of us do, two different worlds and they are complete opposites. This is our job. We go to work, we live in this business world and then we go back to our regular world. We do the same thing that we did before. We sit at home. We're not that exciting. We watch American Idol every Tuesday and Wednesday and spend time with our family and friends. I think maintaining that world is extremely important."

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Watch the trailer for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Finishing high school

Lautner won't become one of those celebrities who complain about how hard it is to get constant attention. He keeps it all in perspective.

"Sometimes it becomes aggravating but you've got to tell yourself that this comes with the job and what you're getting out of it on the other side is definitely worth it. Sometimes it's hard but you can't let them affect you that much or you know it will drive you insane. Maintaining sanity is pretty important to me so you've got to push that stuff aside, but yeah, it's never normal."

He even made sure to fit a normal high school education into his plans. Well, normal if you rush to graduate before filming your next blockbuster. "I did finish high school, I finished early, so it was a lot of work crammed into a shorter period of time. I think I was the kind of guy that I didn't have like a certain group of friends that I hung out with every single day. I was more of the type that kind of just like roamed around and spent time with a wide variation of people. It sounds so cheesy, but I love people in general, like meeting new people and working with people, so I've always been that sort of type."

Abduction casts Lautner as a normal kid. "Abduction really has an interesting story. It's about a high school senior who finds a picture of himself on a missing persons' web site only to realize that his whole life for 18 years has been a lie. I mean, it can't be nonsense action. The action has to make sense and that's with the story behind it. I'm super excited to get going on that. I start in three weeks."

That film will allow Lautner to show off some new skills, for which he's been training in pre-production. "I had to do boxing training, then fight training, that's a little different, motorcycle training, and then as soon as I get to Pittsburgh, I think I'll have to do some swimming training, so overall, it's pretty intense, there'll be a lot of action in that one."

Perhaps Lautner is a quick study for these various skills because he's been active all his life. Martial arts have been a part of Lautner's youth. He was a Karate champion by age 11 and even demonstrated some of his skills when he hosted Saturday Night Live.

"I don't have time to practice it seriously, on a regular basis, but I do it for fun. If I'm just like with a buddy or something that does it as well, I'll just randomly throw a flip or something. I grew up playing sports, and martial arts my entire life, so I'm used to working out in some way. Recently it's been the gym, because I've had to put on a little bit of muscle for a certain movie or two, so I keep up time in the gym and it's just added with training for the specific movie that I'm doing at the moment."

Meeting Tom Cruise

You may have also seen Lautner with Tom Cruise (in full Les Grossman makeup) at the MTV Movie Awards. Lautner met Grossman, Cruise's sleazy agent character from Tropic Thunder, before he met the real Cruise.

"I met him for the first time when we filmed the actual promos and stuff and he was in his Les Grossman outfit, so I didn't meet him as Tom, I met him as Les. I walked up to him and he's like doing all his dance moves and he turns around, he's like, 'Oh, hey Taylor, nice to meet you.' So it was a very interesting way to meet my icon. It was pretty surreal, definitely, and the fact that I can just say that I had the opportunity to work with him, even if it was for the MTV Movie Awards, is pretty cool."

Lautner is waiting for a script for Stretch Armstrong, and getting ready to shoot the two part Breaking Dawn after he wraps Abduction. Summit Entertainment finally confirmed speculation that they would split the story of Breaking Dawn between two movies.

"I think that was definitely the right thing to do. It's hard enough to break down 500 plus pages into a 110, 120 page script, but this one is 800 and there's just so much going on with the wolf pack and the baby. There's a lot of stuff so to condense that into one film would probably be a challenge. I'm very excited that it's two. Looking forward to it. It's definitely super important to us to maintain as faithful as possible to the books because that's exactly what the fans what to see. They want to see the books. There may have to be a few little changes here and there but as long as we maintain the basic story and everything the characters go through, all those emotions, we're going to be fine. I think that Bill Condon, whatever he does is going to turn out amazing. I definitely trust in him and I think the fans should as well."

Eclipse opens June 30.

Watch this preview feature on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.