In his visite to the Mexico to promote Twilight, Robert Pattinson give an interview to the Magazine “El Manana”.

Even though he doesn’t consider himself as a vampire’s stories fan, Robert Pattinson didn’t hesitate in acting in Twilight, as long as he get to work with Catherine Harwicke and Kristen Stewart.

“I’ve never been a big fan of vampire’s stories or that kind of movies, I didn’t like them, but with this one, I changed my perspective, the story inspired me.”

I wanted to do this partly because I really liked the main actress. I remembered her role in Into The Wild, she seemed excellent,” explained the British actor.

Visiting Mexico to promote the film, which premieres Nov. 21, Pattinson recalled that when he came to the audition with Stewart, he liked the fierce that she projects.

“They’re two people that make the cinematography in a very interesting way, and not so much from the commercial perspective”

“Even though he’s one of the hottest and he doesn’t look like a vampire, people is afraid of him. It was such a challenge to portrait a character that is 108 years old and looks like a 17 years old teenager, because I got to play both situations.

“The fact that he is a vampire that likes drinking blood had to be in my head, but at the same time I had to play a regular human being”, pointed the british actor.

“The vampire’s stories are very popular, but in the case of Twilight, I wouldn’t say that it’s a vampires movie, it’s more like a love story”

“The difference between this and the others are that in the others, when the vampires are exposed to the sunlight they die, they are affected by garlics, there’re others that they’re determined to kill humans, and in this one, he just love the life as a typical teenager”

Pattinson added that the filming of Twilight was very intense because of the environment in which they had to shoot.

“What happens is that vampires during the day, must have a very specific weather, it had to be very cloudy all the time and that limited us a lot, because you could not shoot when there was much sun or when it was raining.”

Read in Spanish
Traslated by E-Cullen.org

Pictures from Robert promoting Twilight in Mexico

Can’t get enough on ‘Twilight’? Neither can we. So Premiere.com cornered the film’s screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg to talk about adapting ‘Twilight,’ balancing TV and film and women writing in Hollywood.
By Sona Charaipotra

Dancer-turned-screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg didn’t really know what she was getting into when she took on the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel Twilight, which hits the big screen Nov. 21. “I have to admit, I hadn’t heard about Stephenie Meyer’s book,” she says sheepishly. But she sure has now. We chatted with the writer about Twi-Hard trauma, sequel talk, balancing film and TV work — she’s a co-executive producer on Showtime’s hit “Dexter” — and breaking down the doors to Hollywood’s old boys’ club. Plus, we got the inside scoop on whether she’s Team Edward or Team Jacob!

First things first, how did you end up on the Twilight adaptation?
Well, Summit Entertainment and I had done Step Up together, and it was a really cool, collaborative experience. And then they asked me to do “Step Up 2,” and I was unavailable, so I thought, “Great, I just destroyed my relationship with a great company.” But then, a few months later, Eric Feig at Summit called again and asked, “Well, how do you feel about teens and vampires?” And I was like, “Oh my God, I love teens and vampires!” It just so happens that I was a huge, huge fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” I would go as far as to say it’s one of the all time greatest series ever on TV. Plus, it’s highly likely that I’ve seen every movie featuring a vampire in it. Okay, maybe not every single one, but you know what I mean. So I was really excited to get that call. But I have to admit, I hadn’t heard about Stephenie Meyer’s book before Summit approached me. In fact, when I got the call, I was at a friend’s house. And when I asked my friend, “Have you ever heard of a book called Twilight?” my friend, like, jumped up and pulled it off his bookshelf. So that was convenient. So I sat down and read it immediately. And I was hooked. Stephenie came along and takes on this overused genre and completely reinvents it with a wonderful fresh new mythology. How lucky am I that I got to play in her world?

So did you end up reading the books before you met with Summit about the adaptation?
I did not read any of the books besides Twilight itself, because the adaptation was supposed to be of the first book. In fact, I didn’t read them until I was done with the script because I wanted to approach the screenplay for Twilight as any reader or audience member would. I wanted to stay true to the first book; I didn’t want to leak what happens next. For example, Jacob in the first book is very different from Jacob in New Moon or the other books, so I wanted the movie version of Twilight to be a complete story on its own. But I was nervous going into that first meeting because the director, Catherine Hardwicke, was going to be there and I’m a big fan. But I was confident because my take was that it was a great book and that we should stick to the book as our bible. And I think that’s what they were hoping for because there was actually an earlier version at Paramount that they threw out. I remember Stephenie saying it was a great script; it just had nothing to do with the book. And with a project like this, you can’t really veer away from the book. So my pitch was to stay close to the book but really shape it into a movie.

So how did you really shape it into a movie?
Well, in the book there’s a lot of rich internal dialogue, [but] it’s really in Bella’s head. It’s hard to do that in a movie. And I wanted the movie to be from Bella’s perspective, but at first I really struggled with how to get into her head without using voiceover. A lot of it meant making her have conversations with others in which that internal dialogue could be externalized. It was really about unfolding how she figures out that Edward is a vampire. Who could she have that conversation with? I think I was pretty successful in doing that.

When did the voiceover come into play?
You know, it was Catherine that suggested I use voiceover. Because, you know, for screenwriters, they always say voiceover is a big no-no, although we do use a lot of voiceover on “Dexter.” But voiceover, anywhere, is really hard to write. But it was Catherine who said, “I think you should use it.” So we started using it very sparingly, because in the movie you really need to know what is going on inside her head and bring the audience along with her.

Also, with a script, you also need to keep moving really fast and have conflict in every scene, so it ended up being a lot of condensing of the novel. So when I pitched, I said, “Here’s what we condense, and here’s what we pull out to structure the story on.” And also, you don’t really see James and the other villains until to the last quarter of the book, which really won’t work for a movie. You need that ominous tension right off the bat. We needed to see them and that impending danger from the start. And so I had to create back story for them, what they were up to, to flesh them out a bit as characters.

How much collaboration with Stephenie did you have during the writing process?
Really, none at all, and in a way, every word. I had very little contact with Stephenie during the adaptation process because I had to bring my own vision to it, to really see it as a movie that exists separately from the book. But obviously, every word I wrote came directly from her imagination. So though we had very little contact, we danced together on the page. The one thing we really did discuss during my writing process was the setting.

The book starts out with Bella in Scottsdale, then transitions to the lush Pacific Northwest, which is very visually arresting. So I wanted to start in Forks, because for a film, it really works. But Catherine, Stephenie, and I talked about why she started with Bella at home in Scottsdale. It was also about introducing her as a character — how she sees herself as just a very ordinary girl compared to everyone else, which is exactly the opposite of how Edward sees her. So that ended up shaping the opening of the movie. It provided a stark contrast — not just where she’s headed, but where she’s coming from. It set up her relationship with her mother Renee, which ends up being important to the climax. And she sent me some pages that took me further into the characters’ minds and back stories. It was invaluable. We have collaborated a lot more deeply since then, and we’ll continue to, I think. She’s an amazing lady, very funny and smart.

What was your writing process on Twilight?
Well, I started working on this in August 2007. I do very, very detailed outlines, about 25-page single-spaced outlines for a feature. I think that’s where most of the work happens. It’s I guess coming from working on TV. In TV, there are so many people involved, and you really have so many layers to go through of people signing off on things. And features, really, can be similar because you’ve got the studio, you’ve got the director. So I wanted them to really know what I was planning to do before I moved forward with it. So I spent a lot of time on the outline. And I was also working on “Dexter” at that point. So essentially I was working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it was great to have the director, Catherine Hardwicke, around to bounce ideas off of. She was a great sounding board and had all sorts of brilliant ideas.

And then at the end of August, I turned in the outline thinking “Okay, now I have another two months to write the actual script, which is great.” So then I get the call and they said, “We need the script in five weeks.” And I said, “Well, it just can’t be done in five weeks.” So they said, “Well, do you want to get it made?” Of course. So it turns out, you can write a script in five weeks — if you do NOTHING else. If you don’t shower, if you don’t eat, if you don’t say hello to your husband, you don’t pet the dog, you basically live and breathe the script.

How did the folks at “Dexter” handle that?
It was funny, we were just in the process of breaking down the finale script for the season. And then I got the phone call. I just panicked. And I walked into my co-executive producer Daniel Cerone’s office and I said, “Daniel, can you please, please, please write this last script by yourself?” And he was incredibly understanding. I’m really, really blessed to be working with this fabulous team at “Dexter,” because the same thing is going on now. I’m juggling another project along with the show. And I’m a co-executive producer now, so I’m growing with the show. But we’re all writers; we all understand when these awesome opportunities come along. You just can’t say no.

So you were plowing ahead fulltime on the script?
Yes, it really went by really fast. Luckily, Catherine was around to give me instant feedback and instant editing. So I’d finish off scenes and send them to her, and get back her notes. So it was a very organized, compulsive schedule. So it was first draft is done by this week, the second is done by this date, because we were all fighting a writers’ strike deadline, really. October 31st was the deadline for that. It was pretty much now or never. It was maybe five weeks to do the first draft and two weeks to do the second. And I was working almost to midnight on that last day.

Speaking of the Writer’s Strike, you’re pretty involved in the WGA, right? What did the strike mean to you?
Yes, I was Strike captain and on the line. It was very interesting because we all went into to it thinking, oh, I’ll get to write that spec I’ve been thinking about. But we all went into it exhausted, and the strike itself was just exhausting. No one got anything done. When you’re on the line, you’re walking four hours at a time, waving signs. It’s extremely hard work, but it was very empowering in a way, in this age of corporate greed, to really see all those creative people stand as one. We were fighting the corporate greed in this country, the power that would crush unions. They’ve been trying to do that for decades now. And we won.

We won — maybe not everything we wanted, but what we struck for. And we got a floor to start from on [the] Internet. And sure, we got a lot of blame for people being out of work, but really, people should have been blaming the corporations that were simply refusing to even come to the table. They didn’t want to even begin to negotiate, so it was interesting to watch how it was spun. But in the end, I think, I hope that it benefited all the unions. I was on the board of directors of the WGA for five years, but I bowed out a few years ago because you can get really, really wrapped up in it. So I’ve sort of taken a step back from it a bit now.

Are you still chairing the WGA Diversity committee?
I was, but it’s gotten to the point where, though I’m still involved, I just don’t have the time. It takes a lot of time and energy just emotionally, so I’m doing it in my own way. I’m mentoring some young women and really speaking about it when I can. But I’m really starting to look at the issue now from a national perspective. I’ve always wanted to get involved in national politics. So now I’m involved in another group, it’s the League of Hollywood Women Writers.

What does the League of Hollywood Women Writers do?
It’s largely fundraising to support candidates who support things like freedom, fighting corporate integration, and things like that — the quote-unquote women’s issues. It’s non-partisan, and it’s open to anyone who really supports our issues. One of our issues is pro-choice and another is pro-gay rights, so that typically leans to the left. Yup, the typical bleeding heart liberals. But really, it’s a group of primarily women show runners and a couple of feature writers. And we just came to the realization that when we all work together, we can actually get stuff done. We can actually make stuff happen. So we decided to harness that power and take action to raise funds. I’m going to a conference in Chicago to speak, and I think Michelle Obama and even Barack will be speaking there. It’s a conference of the biggest female fundraisers in the country. I think I really missed my calling in politics.

How did the League come about?
Well, it’s about agenda-setting. What we realized during the Writers’ Strike was that we were going to all these fundraisers held by producers in Hollywood. And we’d just write our checks and the corporate types, who had collected the funds, who [would] be able to, along with those checks, sort of peddle their agenda to the people in power. So we didn’t have any real connections to the politicians – and when that politician needed information, they’d be calling those fundraising producers. And during the strike, it became clear that their issues are not our issues when it comes to freedom and intellectual property and all of the creative issues.

So what we realized is that we need the money to be funneled through us so that when those politicians are agenda-setting, our voice is also part of the conversation. We want to be the ones they call, and we want to tell them, here’s what they need to know from the creative perspective. People really don’t understand the whole issue about Internet freedom. It’s very complicated, so we want to have our voices heard. We can be a source for them and help educate them. These aren’t just Hollywood issues — these are crucial issues for the American public.

Considering the hoopla about the four female best screenplay Oscar nods last year, do you think women writers are more well-represented in Hollywood these days?
You know, honestly, it’s not getting better. If you look at the numbers, the WGA diversity reports, the numbers for both minorities and women are essentially the same as they were years ago. They just haven’t moved. It’s discouraging. And it’s exhausting. You think you’ve made some headway, and you really haven’t. But if you don’t keep fighting, then the other side wins. So you have to keep fighting, but you may not see the change. It’s hard. I think one of the problems is that women are 51 percent of the general population, but maybe 28 percent representation in the WGA. And the Directors’ Guild has it worse than we do. There numbers are even lower. It’s just challenging. And it’s discouraging.

Have you experienced the boys’ club mentality yourself?
Yes, the first half of my career, I was more often than not the only woman in the room. Now, there are a few more women-centered shows on which you’ll see more women writers, but it’s still really tough. You’re always looking for that balance — how do I be one of the guys in the writers’ room without being a traitor to my own gender and really losing my own voice? In my first TV job, I found myself defending my gender constantly, which sort of alienated me from the group. Next thing I knew, there were story meetings happening in offices that I wasn’t included in, because they just didn’t feel comfortable hanging out with me. I’ve been [in] writers’ rooms for 16 years, and [it's] true, you need to be comfortable to bring the creativity, but they can get really crass. And it’s been a career-long challenge.

Do you think TV is a lot more open to women writers?
Yes and no. I mean, there are definitely more female show runners out there now. Shonda Rimes [the writer and producer for "Grey's Anatomy"], for example, is very color-blind and inclusive when staffing her writers’ room. But I remember getting these calls from my agent and I’d say, “What about this show?” And the response would be, “Oh, they didn’t [or] want to read you because they already have their woman.” Because clearly you only need one woman writer per show, right? That still happens today. Just bring in that one woman for the female perspective. But I’m no longer the only female writer in the room. Even on a show like “Dexter.”

You’re a co-executive producer on Showtime’s “Dexter,” which is a big job. How do you balance TV and film?
Well, with “Dexter,” I’ve been very lucky. Yeah, there’s a procedural element to it, but it’s really character-driven, so it feels like home to me. And if I can do cable for the rest of my career, I’ll be happy, because that’s where you can really do quality, character-driven work. I’ve been on the show for three years, and I just signed on for another two. I’m staying. I love TV. I’ll never leave TV. I now have, finally, the career that I want on a show that I love, that creatively satisfies me. And I do that for six months of the year, and the other six months, I get to write films. Well, that’s in theory anyway. Ideally, that’s what it is. Right now, I’ve been trying to do both at once. But I love it. I’m an overnight success 16 years in the making. I mean, between “Dexter” and Twilight, this is the career I always wanted. I just want to enjoy the sunshine. I’ve had a long career, so I know what it’s like when the sun isn’t shining on you. When the opportunities come, I have to do them. I’m working seven days a week, five days a week on “Dexter,” two days a week on the other project. But my husband [director Lev Spiro, who's done TV like "Ugly Betty" and "Weeds"] has had enough.

There’s already talk of New Moon being on the production slate. Are you going to be involved with that, if it’s happening?
I would be, yes. But you have to understand, nothing is official yet. We’re not announcing it, and it’s not a final conversation yet. This is all still in the works. But if and when it happens, I will be involved in it, yes. And I’m just thrilled. I’m such a huge fan of Stephenie’s work and this vivid world that she creates. It’s so complete and so rich and complex emotionally. It’s just a delightful world to play in. As a reader I’m a huge fan, but as an adaptor, I couldn’t ask for a better world to work with.

Do you prefer adaptations or do you prefer writing original stuff?
It’s weird, you always hear people say that adapting a work is so much harder than writing an original. And I always think to myself, how can that possibly be true? There’s nothing more difficult than a blank page. Even if all you’re able to salvage from an adaptation is the title, you’ve still got something to work with. More than you’d have otherwise. But I say that coming off the experience of adapting a really great novel. I’m sure other writers have had a harder time because they don’t all have great material to work from. Stephenie’s work is so complete and so rich, it’s like a feast, a huge buffet of options. Every time I got stuck, I could just go back to the book and say, “Oh, I can do that!” What she gave me to play with was amazing. So, based on that experience, I’d love to always adapt books. But I might be eating my words, down the line.

With a best-selling franchise like the Twilight saga, though, is there a lot more pressure there to make it perfect, to live up to the fans’ expectations?
Oh yeah, there’s definitely a lot of pressure there. Twilight fans, as you know, have been pouring over every detail of this film’s production. In the beginning of this process, I was not aware of the following these books had [like] the Twi-Hards, and I purposely tried to stay unaware of it, to tune it all out. Otherwise I’d drive myself crazy. But now I’m hyper-aware of it, so it’s become even more intimidating to know that you really do have to be passionate about this book, to stay true to the book. I had to stop reading the sites because they all took apart my bio and 10 people would say, “Oh, this will be great, she did ‘Dexter’ and Step Up,” but one would say “Oh, I hated Step Up!” And of course, that’s the one that sticks with you. And then they found some early version of the script. And they’ll analyze every line. “Hey, this line isn’t in the book.”

I love the enthusiasm, but I just have to tune it out. It just kills me. I just can’t read the comments. But I think we’ll deliver, because we’ve got a fabulous director in Catherine, and the cast is just perfect. It’s all resting on them, really. Your iconic leads have to be whom the readers imagined in the book, and I think the fans really embraced Rob and Kristen.

So naturally, I have to ask. Team Edward or Team Jacob?
It depends on which book I’m reading. In Twilight, you obviously fall for Edward and you’re less aware of Jacob. But in New Moon, I just loved Jacob. He’s so dynamic. I myself always love the bad boys. But I also love the smart, refined, mysterious Edward. And he’s a musician to top it off. For Bella, I’d choose probably Edward… or maybe Jacob. Oh, I don’t know! It’s just so hard!

Spoiler alert: If you want to find out how Twilight ends, all you need to do is pick up the book. The film, which comes out this November, is an adaptation of the first volume in Arizona author Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire quadrilogy, a set of sentimental tales about the impossible love between an ordinary 17-year-old high school girl and her classmate, a beautiful 110-year-old bloodsucker, who refuses to bite her and damn her to his sort of immortality. In other words, it’s your regular teenage romance. “The story has elements of Romeo + Juliet and Titanic,” says director Catherine Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown, Thirteen), “but it’s also got sexual tension, the supernatural, and a guy who’s fighting his own impulses in order to stay in the relationship. It’s really very sexy. Who hasn’t fallen for the wrong person? It’s like, ‘I know that this is the last person I should let my heart go to, but it’s already gone.’”

So far, audiences seem sold on the film, sight unseen. Twilight cost $37 million to make, but judging from the groundswell of support from Meyer’s fans—many of them teenage girls—producers should have little trouble recouping their costs, especially considering the ensemble cast of young male heartthrobs they’ve assembled. Meyer may not be J.K. Rowling, but she’s certainly no slouch. The final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, sold about 1.3 million copies on the day it was released last August (about a sixth of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ first day). Translation rights to the books have been sold in thirty-three different countries, and the second, New Moon, spent thirty-three weeks on the New York Times children’s best-seller list. Vampire stories have some staying power—especially vampire stories about lovelorn kids.

In adapting the first book, Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg opted to stay faithful to Meyer’s narrative. (Probably a wise decision, considering how rabid the readership is.) Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is an average teen living in Phoenix who decides to move to her father’s house in Forks, Washington, a dreary place where it rains three-quarters of the year, to give her mother and her new stepfather time to travel. At school, Bella meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), an alluring and initially distant presence, whom she begins to suspect is a vampire. As it turns out, Edward belongs to a coven of beautiful vegetarian vamps—a family of sorts, brought together by a shared mandate to drink animal blood instead of the human kind.

The two begin a relationship, fraught with all the usual, uh, interfaith difficulties. Meanwhile, a rival group of equally beautiful but less friendly bloodsuckers descends on the town, one of whom decides to hunt Bella for sport. The chase is on, and it’s up to Edward to save her. “It’s just such a great metaphor for unrequited love,” says Rosenberg. “Bella feels very normal, and that can be hard when she’s surrounded by these modelesque figures, who are so difficult to relate to physically. It’s the same for any kid growing up in L.A., when you’re surrounded by models and actors.”

Perhaps energized by the beauty-myth subtext and the allure of forbidden love, Meyer’s fan base has proven to be an active one. Groups like Twilighters, Twi-Hards, and even Twilight Moms have organized online, and in July they flocked to San Diego’s Comic-Con, where Meyer, Hardwicke, Rosenberg, and members of the principal cast showed footage and took questions from the crowd—at least when they could be heard over the screams. The response to actors Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet, and Taylor Lautner was “a little like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan,” Rosenberg recalls. “It was insanity.” The coming-of-age story’s sequels have yet to be planned, but given the reaction so far, Hardwicke is sanguine about her chances of revisiting the series. “I mean,” she says, “who wouldn’t want to be bitten on the neck by a handsome vampire?”

TWILIGHT IS OUT IN NOVEMBER 2008 FROM SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

See all 11 photoshoots by VMAN Magazine

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SANTA MONICA, California — There aren’t many people out there who can claim to have hung out with Miley Cyrus, Jamie Lynn Spears, Aly & AJ and Edward and Bella. But at the tender age of 18, rising star Christian Serratos has already proven adept at keeping one finger firmly on the pulse of teen pop culture.

Next month, the affable young actress — whose previous roles include TV guest spots, a Disney Channel movie and a recurring gig on Nickelodeon’s “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide” — will make her feature-film debut in one of the fall’s most highly anticipated films. And before the movie’s November 21 release, she had to swing by the MTV studios for her very own “Twilight” Tuesday, to tell us all about the bookish Angela Weber, her “I heart Edward” pins, Coldplay videos and her desire to get bloody in the sequels. (And in the MTV Movies blog, Serratos tells us which actors she’d like to work with next.)

MTV: How did you become involved with “Twilight”?

Christian Serratos: Well, I’d heard of the books, but I didn’t have any idea they were turning them into a movie. And when I found out, I was stoked. I read all the books; I couldn’t put them down, and I just fell in love.

MTV: Did you read them all right away?

Serratos: Well, we only got one of each book. So me and my mom had to trade back and forth. When one of us was done, the other one got to read it. … We were both like, “OK, don’t tell me what happens — but hurry up!”

MTV: Did you already know you were playing Angela?

Serratos: I initially went in for Jessica. I did the auditions, and I got called in a couple times for Jessica. But reading the books, I fell totally in love with Angela. So when they said I was going to have the opportunity to audition for Angela, I really took advantage. I remember walking out of the room and being like, “OK, this is it.” I put my hair up in a ponytail and — I wear glasses 24/7 — I took them off when I was auditioning for Jessica, but I put them back on. I just tried my hardest to really capture Angela — and I guess it worked! And I definitely wasn’t blind, so that was a plus.

MTV: Tell us about your take on Angela.

Serratos: She is Bella Swan’s good friend in school. She’s a photographer. She’s very committed to doing her best in school, and she’s just there to befriend Bella and tries her hardest to make sure she feels comfortable in the new school. She’s kind of timid and keeps to herself, but she’s very sweet. She’s a great girl.

MTV: Is your take on the character by the book, or have you injected bits of yourself?

Serratos: I brought myself to the character, of course, but I really didn’t try to change her at all. She’s there in the book; she’s very alive [as] a character.

MTV: Tell us about your favorite scene you got to shoot.

Serratos: Oh, gosh, I don’t know if I can pick one! They were all painful because it was very cold, but they were all so much fun. I think my two favorites would have to be the car crash scene (as glimpsed in the new “Twilight” trailer), which was actually the first scene that all the quote-unquote humans shot together, and it was probably one of the coldest days. It was raining and cold, and it was a very long day, but we all had a blast doing it. Watching the stunts and stuff was mind-boggling.

MTV: And the other?

Serratos: Another fun day was the scene at the beach; it was kind of a trek to get there. We had to go through the wilderness and woods, and we were all in our rain boots because it was so muddy. But we got down to the beach, and it was so beautiful. It looked like a Coldplay music video. I mean the water looked like snow, and it was cold, yes, but it was gorgeous.

MTV: Tell us more about the beach scene.

Serratos: Well, it’s a scene where we are trying to get Bella to feel more comfortable, so we invite her to the beach with us. There’s a group that’s surfing, and I take pictures and just sort of mingle about. Apparently, Angela doesn’t surf!

MTV: How closely did you get to work with Robert Pattinson?

Serratos: We got to do one scene, because there were definitely two worlds to the movie. He’s really cool. Everyone loves him, and for good reason.

MTV: You were once in an episode of “Hannah Montana,” correct?

Serratos: Oh, yeah. [Laughs.]

MTV: So, do you see a comparison between the fanbases?

Serratos: Both worlds have their dedicated fans, but I don’t really compare them to each other. They were both fun experiences to work on, but I think it ends there.

MTV: Do you think “Twilight” is more adult?

Serratos: Um, I guess. But I think they share the same age range when it comes to fans.

MTV: Have you received any crazy gifts or anything from the Twilighters?

Serratos: Well, I was sent — I guess a lot of the “Twilight” people — [our] names were sent into space. And so were you, right?

MTV: Yeah, you heard about that?

Serratos: [Laughs.] So, I guess our names are chilling out together up there. Whatever. It’s cool.

MTV: Kinda cool, huh?

Serratos: I know; I got that packet, and I was like: “NASA certificates, what? That’s not normal!” And someone was like, “Yeah, they sent your name into space.” All right! Pretty cool.

MTV: If you were a vampire, would you be a vegetarian or would you suck human blood?

Serratos: I’d have to be a vegetarian vampire. I’m a vegetarian now, so it goes hand in hand, right?

MTV: As a vegetarian, when you read the books, do you see that as a good message?

Serratos: You know, I never really thought that far into it, but definitely. I mean, if I were a vampire, I definitely wouldn’t be after the humans. That’s a good message. If you’re ever a vampire, don’t eat humans.

MTV: You told us a while back that you were on the bookstore waiting list to buy “Breaking Dawn” with everyone else.

Serratos: Uh-huh. I went, and I picked up my copy.

MTV: Did you go at midnight with all the thousands of screaming fans?

Serratos: Yes, I did; me and three of my friends walked in, and we went to two different places, just because we were anxious to see what people had to do. We snuck in and grabbed our books and bolted out. There were people passing out bookmarks and crazy stickers and pins and stuff. I saw these two “I heart Edward” pins and “I heart Jacob” pins, and I was like, “Mine!” I got those. I was so excited to get any little stuff for “Twilight.”

MTV: Were you recognized by anybody?

Serratos: I definitely got looks, but I would be too shy to go up to them. I think that’s the case: People get shy. I was definitely shy to walk in there.

MTV: Which scene would you most love to shoot in the “Twilight” sequels?

Serratos: In “Breaking Dawn,” there was this dream Bella had about her good friends being dead. It was such a gruesome scene in the book. I think it’d be way fun to do that, like bloodying me up or something, and I could just lie there. That’d be fun.

MTV: Every year at Comic-Con, we see middle-aged people who are still signing autographs from some beloved TV show or movie they did decades ago. You’re only 18 now, but would you be OK with being asked about “Twilight” for decades to come?

Serratos: I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I mean, if that’s what this has done, then who am I to hate on that? That’s great, I think. “Twilight” has been a great opportunity, and it’s been great fun. Hey, if I’m 50, and someone still wants an autograph for “Twilight,” OK, cool.

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Taylor Lautner’s smile arrives in the hotel lobby before he does — a huge white movie-star grin.

The 16-year-old Hudsonville native has a lot to smile about.

Monday, he’ll be on TV in one of NBC’s most-hyped shows of the new season, a spy drama called “My Own Worst Enemy,” starring Christian Slater.

The buzz couldn’t be bigger for his November movie, “Twilight,” based on the phenomenally popular teen vampire books by Stephenie Meyer.

Last month, his cool quotient went up when he was a presenter at MTV’s Video Music Awards, appearing with “Twilight” co-stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

As Kimberly writes on the Taylor Lautner fan Web site: “Taylor is SO SO SO SO SO HOT!”

Taylor hails from Hudsonville but moved to Los Angeles in 2003 to pursue an acting career.

Things worked out. His big break came at age 13 when he was cast as Shark Boy in the 2005 movie “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.” Then he won a role in “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” with Steve Martin and Hilary Duff.

He sat down to chat in the hotel lobby at Country Inn and Suites on 28th Street SE, where his family stayed during a recent trip to Michigan to visit family.

He’s wearing the jeans and hip T-shirt of a 16-year-old, but he has the confident self-assuredness of somebody older. Easygoing with a near constant smile, Taylor seems comfortable in his skin, although he has this disconcerting jiggly knee thing he calls “my worst habit.” He twists his hip, styled-but-messy hair with his fingers a lot as he talks.

Taylor says he’s a regular kid who loves football, movies and cake batter ice cream. He poses shirtless for teen heartthrob photos, but still says stuff like, “Oh, my goodness.”

“I’m no different than anybody else,” he shrugs.

Except girls everywhere are giddily typing, “I love him sooooo much!” and “His smile makes me melt” on Internet fan sites. He’s featured in just about every teen magazine on the stands. He’s all over YouTube.

“I try not to pay attention to it,” he says of the “Taylor is so hot” talk. “That stuff just comes with it.”

That stuff is building with the frenetic anticipation of the teen vampire film “Twilight,” which opens Nov. 21.

When Taylor auditioned for a role in the film last November, he had never heard of the book.

“My agent said, ‘You really want this — it’s a big one.’”

He auditioned, then heard they had narrowed it down to three actors to play Jacob Black, a teen werewolf.

As days and weeks passed, “I realized how big it was,” he says. “Suddenly, it was all over the Internet. I started hearing about all the hype, all the fans. I thought, ‘Oh my goodness. If I get this, it’ll be huge.’ I realized I really want this.”

Not since Harry Potter has a book-to-film project inspired so much excitement. More than 100 fan sites are devoted to the “Twilight” phenomenon, some solely about Taylor’s popular character, Jacob Black.

A month after Taylor auditioned, he got a phone call. His dad, his agent and his manager were all on the phone.

“I knew,” he says with a grin. “I was sweating, I was so excited.”

His character is introduced in the first book of the series, but isn’t huge. “I’m only in three scenes in the first movie,” he says.

But Jacob becomes a big part of the story in the books that follow, as his rivalry with vampire Edward intensifies. Which means fans already are rabid for the loyal werewolf.

Taylor was amid the frenzy at RiverTown Crossings’ Barnes & Noble in August at the midnight-release party for the final book in the “Twilight” series, “Breaking Dawn.” In town to visit family, he dropped in for a surprise visit.

As he entered the book store, he heard the buzz start: “That’s Jacob Black! It’s Jacob Black!”

“Then I heard this mom say, ‘No, that kid’s name is Taylor. He used to live across the street from me.’ And the girls said, ‘No, that’s Jacob Black.’ And the mom said, ‘No, that’s Taylor — he’s my old neighbor.’” He laughs.

“She didn’t know I was gonna be in the movie.”

He signed books for two hours.

“I didn’t realize 1,000 girls were gonna be there,” he says. He stayed at the bookstore, signing and posing for photos, until the last gleeful girl had left — at 2 a.m.

“I would feel miserable if I left and there were still 100 girls who had been waiting two hours to get my autograph,” he says.

He says nothing prepared him for the reaction at Comic-Con International in July in San Diego — the huge convention for comic books and other popular art forms — when 125,000 people tried to get into a preview of the “Twilight” film and a panel discussion with the cast. Only 6,500 fit in the auditorium.

“There were 11,000 people waiting in line for autographs,” he says, shaking his head. While he was there, he and other cast members did 52 online and radio interviews and 25 TV interviews, he says.

How does he keep from getting a big head?

Taylor laughs.

“My parents wouldn’t allow it,” he says. “That’s not the way they brought me up.”

Taylor’s dad, Dan, says as Taylor’s star rises, so does their determination to keep him grounded.

“Because of all that’s happening for him, we want him to do normal things,” Dan says. “We kept him in public school as long as we could, so he could be with his peers. We give him responsibilities at home — chores he has to do. He gets an allotted allowance and he has to budget it.

“We’re trying to teach him things, so that when he goes out on his own, he’ll be prepared.”

It’s been a crazy couple of months for the whole family, Dan says, adjusting to Taylor’s increasingly higher profile among obsessed fans as buzz builds for the “Twilight” movie. They’re doing their best, he says, to keep their son’s personal life private.

“We want to protect him,” he says. They also want to celebrate.

“We had no idea what was gonna happen,” Dan says of his son’s career. “We tell him ‘You have no idea what’s gonna happen tomorrow, so enjoy today. Have fun.’”

Early days

Taylor was born in Grand Rapids and lived on Rosewood Avenue SE until he was 4, then moved to Hudsonville with his parents Dan, a commercial airline pilot, and mom Deb, a former Herman Miller employee and now project manager for a software development company. He has a younger sister, Makena, 9.

A sports kid, he loved wrestling, football, basketball. At age 6, he started lessons at Fabiano’s Karate in Holland.

By age 7, he attended his first national karate tournament in Louisville, Ky. There, he met Mike Chat, who specialized in extreme karate, with stunts and flips. He ran a camp at UCLA and invited Taylor to attend.

“I fell in love,” he says. “By the end of the camp, I was doing aerial cartwheels with no hands.”

He trained with Chat for the next several years, earning his black belt and winning several junior world championships. Chat suggested Taylor try acting.

“He saw that I wasn’t shy, that I was confident, that I talked a lot,” Taylor says.

That you were cute?

He looks embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess.”

The Lautners would fly to California for auditions when the talent agency called.

“They’d call at 9 or 10 at night, which was 6 or 7 their time, and say, ‘We’ve got an audition tomorrow — can you be here?’ We’d leave really early in the morning and get there about noon,” Taylor says. “I’d go to the audition in the afternoon, take the red-eye back to Grand Rapids then go to school.”

They’d do that a couple of times a month. Taylor was 11.

“Then we decided, ‘This is insane,’” he says. “We can’t keep on doing this.” The family decided to move to L.A. for a month, “to try it,” he says.

“I got one call-back,” he says. “That gave me the drive to keep going.” He grins. “It happened on our very last day there.”

The next step — move there for six months. Taylor landed a Rugrats movie commercial for Nickelodeon.

“It was my first job — I was so ecstatic,” he says with a grin. “I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for.’”

The Lautners moved to L.A. five years ago.

“It was a big deal to leave,” Taylor says. “All our family was here.” His dad’s family is in Traverse City, his mom’s in Manistee. Several aunts and uncles live in Hudsonville.

“There were more auditions. I heard no, no, no, no. So many times.” He says karate helped him hang in there.

“From karate, I had the confidence and drive to push myself,” he says.

He had those traits early, says his former karate instructor and family friend Tom Fabiano, who started teaching Taylor when he was 6.

“A lot of boys that age are bouncing off the walls, but Taylor was always deliberate, focused,” says Fabiano, owner and instructor of Fabiano’s Karate in Holland. “He wasn’t a typical kid. He always worked extra hard.”

Taylor stops by to see him every time he’s in town visiting family, Fabiano says.

“He signs autographs for all the kids, poses for pictures. He’s still that well-mannered, great kid.”

Moms love him, too, Fabiano adds with a laugh.

“There was one mom here, a big ‘Twilight’ fan, and when I told her Taylor was gonna stop in she screamed, ‘I have to meet him!’”

In his first months in L.A., Taylor landed some small TV roles and voice-over work. Then, at 12, he won a starring role in the movie “The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl,” a superhero kid movie directed by Robert Rodriguez, who had directed the popular “Spy Kids” films.

“Oh, we freaked out,” Taylor says with a grin. “My whole family couldn’t sleep for, like, a week.”

When “Shark Boy” hit theaters in summer 2005, Taylor was in Canada filming “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” playing Eliot Murtaugh, a neighbor of the Baker family. He had scenes with Steve Martin.

“That’s when I stopped looking at movie stars as movie stars, and just looked at them as people,” he says.

He returned from Canada to newfound fame as the kid star of “Shark Boy.”

“Ten-year-old boys were the ones who first recognized me,” he says. “I’d be in the store, and boys would whisper to their moms. Then the moms would say, ‘Excuse me — are you Shark Boy?”

He grins.

“I just thought it was so cool,” he says. “I couldn’t believe people wanted my picture.”

The number of fans approaching him tripled after “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” he says. “But now, it was girls.”

At school, he says, he remained a regular kid.

“Kids still looked at me as Taylor, because they knew me from before,” he says. “You gotta remember who your friends were before you got famous.” There are people, he says, who “suddenly want to be your best friend.”

Monday night, he’ll be more famous.

In “My Own Worst Enemy,” which debuts at 10 p.m. Monday on NBC, he plays Jack Spivey, the teenage son of main character Henry Spivey, played by Christian Slater. Commercials have been hyping the show for weeks.

“My character is a star varsity soccer player,” Taylor says. “And I’m gonna be able to use some of my martial arts.” He grins. “It’ll be cool.”

He’s firmly rooted in Hollywood, “but I love coming back here,” Taylor says of Michigan. “In L.A., whatever you do for fun, you gotta spend money. Here, you go jet skiing on a lake. It’s such a fun place for me. I go fishing with one set of grandparents, I go quad riding with the other set. We go trap shooting. It’s so much fun.

“Here, people are way more down-to-earth.”

Lautner may be “just like everybody else,” but he’s movie-star guarded about his personal life.

“I date, like any teen,” he says. Girlfriend?

He laughs.

“My dad won’t let me.”

Five things to know about Taylor Lautner:

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