The Twilight Saga is very close to a world without Taylor Lautner. Alex Cooper and his wife, Tay Lautner, on December 13 ) podcast revealed that he almost lost the role of Jacob Black after the first Twilight movie because of his appearance.
"Yeah, they called me and said, 'Thanks for your participation, but we're recasting you for the rest of the series,'" he confirmed.
Rumors that Lautner would be recast began circulating as early as 2008, when his name was not included in a press release for New Moon, the first sequel to The Twilight Saga, with actor Michael Coppen A very public campaign was launched to take over the role.
However, this has nothing to do with Lautner. "Their plan was to just cast a regular 16-year-old, like I was at the time, and then they would cast someone in their 20s to play Jacob," he explained.
How Lautner kept his role
Jacob is depicted as a scrawny 16-year-old in the first book , The Twilight Saga , and grows into a more muscular young man (and werewolf) in the second book , New Moon . The producers wanted to follow this pattern and cast a new actor for the sequel, but they didn't know that Lautner had already begun bulking up in the hope of retaining his role.
"I had to fight for my role in the franchise, and thankfully I was already in the gym as soon as we finished shooting the first movie," he recalls. “When my team got the call, they said, ‘Have you seen him recently?’ They said, ‘No, why? "My team said, 'You might want to meet with him or do something.'"
How Kristen Stewart Can Help
Producers heard from Lautner's team and when they saw him they were "surprised" by his growth. "I've been working out consistently for about nine months, and I've gained 20-25 pounds of muscle in that time," he said. However, even though he proved his acting chops in the first film, he still had to re-audition to play Jacob.
"They don't make it easy," he quipped.
Luckily, co-star Kristen Stewart, who plays his love interest Bella Swan, fully supported him and helped him keep the role he deserved. "Thankfully, Kristen said, 'You're not reading with any casting director, you're reading with me,' which was very sweet of her and everything worked out," he explained.
His friendship with Stewart remained strong long after the Twilight series ended. In 2019, she attended Lautner's then-girlfriend Tay's 27th birthday party, and more recently, Lautner supported Stewart's ghost hunt after their mutual friend CJ Romero posted about the casting on Instagram Show "Born to Die" . "Let's go!!!!" he commented.
Is his wife Team Jacob?
Interestingly, who plays Jacob may not matter to Lautner's wife, Ty, since she joined Team Edward as a teenager. In July 2022, Tay joined the "show your childhood crush and then the person you ended up with" trend on Instagram, using a photo of his on-screen rival Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Edward Cullen, then DJing prompted photos of Lautner.
"I think it's time to come clean..." she wrote in the post. Lautner took it all in stride, joking: "It's about time I win something."
