New Nine to Five Interview with TLaut

Waiting to interview one of the biggest stars in the world is certainly an odd feeling.

With remnants of coffee cups and bottled water sprawled across various areas of the waiting area, it was a far cry from other press junkets, where media are running from room to room, hoping for the next exclusive.

In this case, for the third instalment of Twilight, it was a much more subdued affair. The waiting areas were quiet, and only a lone bodyguard hovered in the corridors.

So when Kristin Stewart walked past, with her trademark flick of her hair, and shyly said ‘hey,’ there was no doubt who she was talking to. I gave her a knowing smirk, and offered “hey” back.

NINE TO FIVE scored an interview with Taylor Lautner, perhaps better known as his character Jacob Black, who fights off vampires by morphing into a werewolf. Most of us know the story. Young girl falls in love with vampire, vampire leaves to protect her, she’s devastated, werewolf befriends girl and they fall in love, vampire comes back and the love-triangle deepens.

Lautner’s Australian promo-schedule was hectic. Even so, he told me he was excited to visit the country, and that the fans were very polite. But it seems everybody wants a piece of the star. One can only imagine the number of would-be clingers-on that now surround him. So how does someone so young (he turned 18 in February), deal with all this success and fame?

“It’s a matter of surrounding yourself with the people that you’ve always spent time with, your closest friends and family and just not changing that side,” he said.

“I live two different lives. I go into the Twilight world, and I do that job – and that’s what it is, a job – and then you go home, and you’re back with your family and friends and you live the same life you did before.”

But life can’t be that simple. He’s the highest paid teenage actor in the world; he has papparazi tailing him at every turn; he’s tabloid fodder, and even Oprah is a fan.

It surely can’t go back to normal that easily. There can’t be an on/off switch.

“(My life is) different; of course it’s not normal – I still can’t even wrap my head around it.

‘‘You know you’re going to step outside and there’s going to be paparazzi and fans, but it still comes as a surprise,” he said.

“The most important thing is that you can’t let it change your life and affect you too much because it will drive you insane.”

“There’ are pros and cons to everything, but the pros for me heavily outweigh the cons so I’ll take all the other stuff.”

Pros could include the millions of dollars he is making for the Twilight films, and the adoration of all those women, and men, around the world. His body is one of the most talked about subjects whenever his name comes up. His abs even made it to No. 1 in Access Hollywood’s Top Five Hollywood Abs’ list. He doesn’t get sick of the attention, but said it can get a little embarrassing.

It’s rumoured that the director of New Moon considered replacing Lautner because of the major physical changes that occur to his character in the second film, but Lautner trained extensively for a year to secure his spot in the saga, gaining nearly 14 kilos to reprise the role.

Perhaps if he had been cast as Robert Pattinson’s Vampire character, Edward Cullen, he wouldn’t have had to follow such a strict regime.

He sometimes wonders what life would be like on the ‘‘other side’’.

“Just to feel what it would be like, just because I work with the vampires, I want a little taste of it,” he said.

But vampire or werewolf, fame has afforded these Twi-stars many opportunities.

Adoration, money and perhaps even power. It will be interesting to follow the journey of these Twilight stars.

Lautner in particular, has a long career before him. From what this journalist saw, his maturity will be the key to long-lasting success.

Twilight: Eclipse is out July 1.

Taylor Talks

: About Kristin Stewart: “Kristin’s an amazing girl; we’re extremely close friends, so (the media) can say what it wants it doesn’t affect how I’ll look at her.”

: About Robert Pattinson: “He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He has a completely different sense of humour to me but I can’t stop laughing with him. Whenever we have to do scenes where I’m having to hate him and scream at him, as soon as they call cut I end up laughing at him so it’s hard to be mean to such a nice guy.”

: About Dakota Fanning: “She is ridiculously talented. I’ve grown up watching her films, one of my all-time favourite films she was in, Man On Fire, so it was pretty cool to have her be a part of this.”

: About the Taylor Swift/ Kanye West VMA drama: “I didn’t know what was happening. (Moments after Lautner presented Swift with a Video Music Award, West stormed the stage, taking the microphone from Swift to announce Beyonce was more deserved). I thought it was an act. When he (Kanye) got off the stage and she (Taylor) turned around and I saw her face it was the first moment where I went, I’m so confused right now. Was that real?”

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