Women (and men - don't try and hide it pal!) everywhere are falling head over heels for young (very young; he's seventeen!) actor Taylor Lautner. But as the star of ‘'The Twilight Saga : New Moon'' tells Moviehole, most of the adoring lasses probably aren't so much dropping sweat beads for him as they are his hirsute starry-eyed character.
‘'Falling in love with me?'' chuckles Lautner, who plays closet-lycanthrope Jacob Black in ‘'Twilight'' and its highly-anticipated follow-up. "I don't know if I could go that far! My philosophy is that they are in love with the character, and I am lucky enough to be playing him. If they would've hired anybody, they would've fallen in love with him because he's playing Jacob. But the fans are amazing; I don't think we could've asked for better ones."
‘'New Moon'', which like ‘'Twilight'' is based on the best-selling paperback by Stephenie Meyer, sees Jacob growing even closer to befuddled beauty Bella (Kristen Stewart) after her vampiric lover Edward (Robert Pattinson) splits town. It's not long before Bella discovers a potentially noxious secret about her budding new beau.
Lautner admits that because his character's pretty much all there on the page - he's not really able to put his own spin on it too much.
"The books are a great foundation to go from, and you don't want to change it too much or else you're going to disappoint a whole lot of people. You do want to stay as close as possible to the book, as Stephenie wrote them so descriptively that it's right there for you.
‘'Look, you've always gotta bring your own twist to it, and I do. I just want to bring Jacob from the books alive for the fans."
Unlike the stringent fans, who pretty much swallowed all four novels one after the other like they would warm chips, Lautner decided to read only one book at a time - he feared getting too ahead of himself. Thus, while filming ‘'Twilight'' in 2007 he, unlike you guys, didn't know what the future held for his character.
"When I filmed Twilight, I strictly focused on reading the first book, where the character is the opposite to what he is in the sequels", the actor, whose earlier credits include ‘'Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D'' and ‘'Cheaper by the Dozen 2'', says. "As soon as I was done filming, I started reading the others and wanted to bring the other side of Jacob alive."
Lautner, last seen playing Christian Slater's on-screen son in the TV series "My Own Worst Enemy", says the biggest surprise when he finally decided to sit down and read ‘'New Moon'' was discovering he wouldn't have to don the elongated mane again - not for too long, anyway.
‘'I was excited [during Twilight], because it was my first wig and it gives you a different look. But it was itchy, annoying, I really hated it. In New Moon, he cuts it off. He doesn't have to live with it!"
The actor, who says he tried Vegimite when he was last in Australia (‘' It was not delicious, I almost puked''), says he's confused why girls can't decide between Jacob and Edward. As far as Lautner's concerned, the choice is simple.
‘'I say guys, come on? Do you really want a blood sucker, someone who is cold?
Come over to the werewolves who are hot! Everybody loves someone who is hot!
Edward and Bella's relationship is so tense and there's so much danger, but Jacob loves her and will take better care of her than Mr. Cullen will."
