Taylor Lautner has a lot on his plate for someone not yet out of his teens. The star—as well as the producer—of the new CIA thriller Abduction, Lautner moves on for a moment from his role as a shirtless hunk/werewolf in the Twilight series. But, as he notes in this chat with the Press, his legions of fans haven’t moved on from him. Lautner still finds himself faced with hundreds of screaming girls on the set and on his lawn—and he’s still psyched about it. Can you blame the guy? Of course, he’s a little less psyched about taking his shirt off numerous times in every film, which…well, why don’t we let him talk about that?
1. Do you ever get tired of the screams, and the fainting girls? Um…to be honest, no! I mean, I’m sure there may be moments—like maybe if I’m tired or something, or I’m just waking up—but no, really. I mean, if that’s their way of showing their passion, then I will take it.
2. I heard those girls were camped out every day on the set, just to get a glimpse of you. There were a lot of them, yeah. I think probably the highlight was one night when we were filming in a little town with a population of about 600, we had over 800 girls on the set.
3. Any crazy fan encounters? Um…no. Nothing crazy. I mean, I think I did have 300 people on my lawn at one point. But that was about it! They were definitely behaved fans, though.
4. Now, five minutes into Abduction, you’re shirtless. So when you found that out, were you like, “Do I have to go shirtless again?” Well, when I saw the script for the first time, there were like five or six shirtless scenes, and it got cut down to one short one. But no, it has to make sense. It can’t just be nonsense. So we found the one moment where it would make sense, and that one was it.
5. What’s it like for you leaving Twilight behind? Whenever we would finish the movies, we’d be bummed. But we knew it would be just a matter of months before we’d be back filming another one. So when we wrapped these last two, it was tough for us. I mean, because we’ve been playing these characters for so long, and spending so much time together for so long. So it was a little emotional. But the good news is that we’ll be able to promote them together for the next year and a half. But it was emotional for sure, yeah. And my last day of shooting, I was by myself. So that was kinda sad.
6. Where do you see yourself down the road? That is a good question. Because if you asked me that question two years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed that I’d be sitting here today. But my goal is to continue to challenge myself. And you take it one movie at a time.
7. But not a musical? I do want to challenge myself, but probably not that much!