Jackson Rathbone in Saturday Night Magazine

Jackson Rathbone also featured in Saturday Night Magazine talks about Last Airbender, Eclipse and my favorite band 100 Monkeys!
Enjoy!

SNMag: Tell us about your role in The Last Airbender…
Jackson Rathbone: I play a young warrior named Sokka who, along with his sister, discovers a mysterious boy trapped in the ice; they free him and end up on a quest to save the world. It’s a very fantastical story that originated out of the Nickelodeon cartoon and now it’s a live action epic fantasy.

SNMag: Did you have to do any training or physical prep for the role?
JR: There was a good two months of kung fu training in LA and then continued training while we were filming. But it was really fun, I loved it. That’s one of the really cool things about being an actor: you get paid to learn kung fu!

SNMag: What kind of stunts did you have to do?
JR: Mostly it was hand to hand combat. My character doesn’t have any special abilities…so I’d do a lot of scenes where I fight off guys with swords and spears and all I had to fight with was the boomerang. It’s a little bit nerve-wracking, even when it’s a plastic sword coming at you.

SNMag: How was your experience working with M. Night Shyamalan?
JR: It was amazing. The Sixth Sense is one of my favorite thrillers and I love Night’s other work. So it felt like great as an actor to be working with somebody I’ve respected and admired for years.

SNMag: What was your initial reaction when you were cast in Twilight?
JR: It’s a great book series and Jasper has such a lush backstory so I was just really excited. But then I started getting calls from my cousins and they were even more excited than me so that kind of upped the ante – playing a character that my family knows and are excited about seeing me portray on the big screen.

SNMag: Did you realize then it would kick-start your career?
JR: I don’t think it really hit me until I walked the red carpet at the premiere of Twilight. That’s when it was first like, "Oh wow, this is going to be a new experience for me.”

SNMag: What’s one of the most memorable fan encounters you’ve had?
JR: We were filming up in Vancouver for New Moon and I was on my way to get Starbucks. A bunch of fans surrounded me and so I was taking pictures and signing autographs and this woman comes up to me with a 2-year-old child and, without saying a word, hands me her kid and steps back to take a picture. It was just kind of awkward because the kid’s looking at me like, “Who are you?” and I’m looking at the kid like, “I’m sorry, man, I have no idea what’s going on either.” So she snapped a photo, took her kid back and walked away. It’s kind of odd to have a stranger shove a child in your arms.

SNMag: Do we get to see a new side of Jasper in Eclipse?
JR: Yes, we get to see Jasper back when he was a human which was back in the Civil War. So I got to ride a horse again - I grew up riding so it was fun to get back to that.



SNMag: Were you at all into vampire movies before you were cast in Twilight?
JR: I’ve definitely been a fan of the vampire genre for a long time. Interview with the Vampire is an incredible film. I’ve always loved the Dracula films. And Nosferatu is a beautiful, well-crafted film from the 20s that still holds up today, in my opinion.

SNMag: What’s your relationship like with the rest of the cast? How do you spend your time on set?
JR: It’s fun because we play a family on screen and so getting to come back and do these sequels is like a family reunion. A lot of us are musicians as well as actors so we’d all get together in the rooms and we’d have jam sessions and make up songs. I’d play guitar and harmonica, Rob would play guitar and sing or Kristen would play guitar.

SNMag: Who are some of your favorite actors?
JR: I’m just finishing Johnny Depp’s catalogue. I love his style of acting, it’s very organic and down to earth and then it’s also very fantastical at the same time. Clint Eastwood’s the man. And Jack Nicholson, I love his style.

I took this during the 24K days...(((sigh))) miss that place!

SNMag: Tell us more about your band 100 Monkeys…
JR: We just did 61 shows out of a 100 city tour so we’re taking a small break. But it’s something that we love to do. I’ve been playing music as long as I’ve been acting and I feel so privileged to be able to have both those careers taking off at the same time. One of the things I’m trying to get into is integrating film and music - one of the band members and I produced a film that we both acted in called Girlfriend and 100 Monkeys composed the score for the film.

SNMag: We have to ask: Do you have a girlfriend?
JR: No, no, I am single. I got a lot of stuff going on so it’s hard to find time to even go on a date these days. But that doesn’t mean I’m not looking. So every once in a while I’ll get a day off and try to go on a date if I can…find a nice girl at a coffee shop or something.

SNMag: What can you tell us about your tattoos?
JR: I’ve got six tattoos total. I am planning on getting a couple more maybe within the next month or so. I think my next tattoo is going to be a line out of TS Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It’s one of my favorite poems ever.

SNMag: What other movies or projects do you have coming up?
JR: Really excited about getting Girlfriend into the festival circuit and putting out my next couple of projects with my production company, Patchmo Entertainment. I’m really excited to get on the other side of the camera, producing and hopefully directing within the next year or two. It’s just a truly exciting time in my life and I don’t take it for granted. I’d rather be working than sleeping!

Saturday Night with Nikki Reed

Maybe its age or maybe I'm finally listening but Nikki Reed seems like a cool person. I've had this revelation for the last few months even prior to New Moon coming out. The more I get to know about her the more I like her and wish to see her do more work.
How many of us can say we starred in a movie we wrote before you're old enough to get a license? Hell I can't say that and I'm....well you don't need to know that part. Saturday Night Magazine sat down with Ms. Reed to talk about Twilight Saga, Rob and her writing.
Enjoy!

SNMag: What can you tell us about the new movie, Eclipse?
Nikki Reed: It’s full of action, as you can see from the trailers. You really get a glimpse at what it was like for us before we were vampires and how we made the journey. It’s a lot more visually intense.

SNMag: How did you prepare for the filming?
NR: We were in stunt, personal and fight training all the time. I felt like a professional athlete. I felt like all I did was train. They had to make sure our bodies were in good physical shape because we did a lot of our own stunts. There were weeks when I would work Monday through Saturday.

SNMag: What was the coolest stunt you got to do yourself?
NR: Running on steep 30 foot treadmills with harnesses on and jumping while running at 10.0 on the treadmill and ducking through branches and being on the back of tow trucks, being pulled at 100 miles an hour.

Why can't I have a smile like that?

SNMag: We get to learn a bit more about Rosalie’s back story in Eclipse. What is like playing a character that is said to be so incredibly beautiful?
NR: It opened up all these questions about what beauty is. It really stressed me out for a long time. It made me more aware of my insecurity. I eventually had to just be ok with what it is — that is that everyone’s beautiful and we’re all beautiful in a different way. There’s no single person on the planet, not Monica Bellucci or Adriana Lima, that is universally the most beautiful person.

SNMag: What initially drew you to the character of Rosalie?
NR: I liked how honest she was. I liked how she was unwilling to stray from what she believed in and she would fight and speak her mind regardless of how controversial it was.

SNMag: Did you have any idea how crazy the fan following for Twilight would be like when you signed on?
NR: No, not at all. We had no idea. When we signed onto the series, it was a passionate and exclusive group. The hype combined with making the movie made this an explosion. It was bizarre. There’s definitely no formula for it.

SNMag: What has been your craziest fan encounter?
NR: It doesn’t get as crazy for me, but I think that I am careful about which situations I put myself in. I don’t go out a lot and I don’t expose myself to it. There have been moments during shooting where there’s a group of 50 people that have been waiting for 10 hours and you end up feeling as a human being that it’s so undeserved. It just feels like, “Really? You’re waiting for me? That can’t be.” I almost want to see the fans so I can say, “You see, I’m not special at all.”

SNMag: What do you think about the Rob Pattinson craze?
NR: I get it. Rob is a totally fascinating, amazing, wonderful guy. I get why all these girls are so in love with him. He’s super intelligent, mysterious, musical and intellectual. I get it.

SNMag: Do you get along well with all the other cast? Is there anyone you especially get along with?
NR: It depends on where we’re at in our lives. We all get along really well but on this last movie, it just so happened that Elizabeth [Reaser] and I were living literally two steps away from each other. When you came out of my door and took a hard left you were in her room. When I quit smoking that changed who I hung out with in our cast because I got really active and into working out and Elizabeth and Kellan [Lutz] are really active. There was a time when I wanted to sit and smoke cigarettes and play guitar and sing.

SNMag: How do you guys spend your free time when you’re shooting?
NR: We get creative and make silly mini movies and do awesome stuff like that. Other times we just lay around and watch television. There are a lot of music nights because Xavier [Samuel], Rob and Jackson [Rathbone] are very musical. We eat a lot of Thai food. There’s a Thai food place close by. We hang out with each other because we’re very isolated.


SNMag: What is the coolest experience to come out of being associated with a franchise like Twilight?
NR: It’s cool being seen in a different light. I look so different and the entire world sees that I can do that; that I can play someone different and make it believable…hopefully.

I want those shoes!! Yes, I'll be 6'1 when I stand but it'll be worth it!!

SNMag: You broke into acting in a pretty unconventional way. How did you decide to write the screenplay for Thirteen at such a young age?
NR: It was a very unconventional situation. There was no plan. I wasn’t a crazy teenager that was like, “I want to be a screenwriter.” I just do a lot of writing for myself, and I was a precocious child and liked to express my feelings all the time. I was writing about my family and my life and what was going on. Catherine Hardwicke, who dated my father when I was a kid, said, “What if we write this movie?” And we got it made.

SNMag: Do you write screen-plays now?
NR: I’ve continued to write. It’s just one of those things where there’s no formula for making a successful franchise. There’s also no formula for making a different type of phenomenon like Thirteen because the timing was right and the stars were aligned. At one time or another that movie was shocking and eye opening but now with reality TV shows it’s different. I have written a number of screenplays and I continue to explore that avenue. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t been as focused as I’d like to in my late teenage years and early 20s.


SNMag: When you’re not working, what is your favorite way to spend a Saturday night?
NR: I like to cook. I’m not the best cook in the world, but it makes me happy and I’m good at following recipes. I travel a lot. I’ve spent the last few years in Australia, Africa, Switzerland. I’m going to go to Brazil soon.

By Jillian Gordon

Source: Saturday Night Magazine