Forget Edward Cullen and Jacob Black -- for some Twilighters, it's all about Team Jasper. In this summer's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, fans will finally get to see where the 167-year-old recently vegetarian vampire came from… or rather, who he came from.
FEARnet caught up with Jackson Rathbone, currently on tour with his band 100 Monkeys, for more details on what to expect from Jasper's steamy Civil War-era flashbacks. He teased his scenes with Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno, who plays the vampire Maria, and gave us a glimpse of what we'll see in Jasper's back story. (Hint: Fighting! Horses! Lust!)
In addition to his Civil War days, expect to see Jasper's training put to good use in Eclipse's present, as he trains his fellow Cullens for battle. But fun as those scenes were, Rathbone tells us he had a particularly strange time throwing punches at certain cast-mates...
(Fans following Rathbone's parallel music career: also see what he said about taking 100 Monkeys on the road after their current U.S. tour. And stay tuned for more from our chat with Rathbone on his horror flick Dread!)
FEARnet: In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, you get to work with Catalina Sandino Moreno…
Ah man, Catalina. That was amazing, working with her. I was a huge fan of Maria, Full of Grace and she was lovely to work with.
We'll finally get to learn a little bit more about your character, Jasper Hale. What we can expect to see from Jasper's flashbacks and your scenes with Catalina?
Jasper's back story is that he was turned into a vampire during the Civil War era, so I got to don the Civil War regalia and ride a horse again -- I haven't been on a horse in like two years, so that was really fun. Basically, that's how I meet Maria, who's played by Catalina. Maria turns Jasper in order to make him the leader, or trainer, of the army that she needs in the South. Vampire armies are very prevalent in the South in those days. You'll get to see a lot of deadly training vampire scenes, and a little bit of the love-lust relationship between Jasper and Maria and how it doesn't really pan out.
Sounds like the type of turning scene your fans are going to love seeing. From the books and films, we know that vampires are turned with bites in various places; we've seen Carlisle, for example, bite Esme rather romantically on the neck to change her. So… can you tell us where exactly Maria bites Jasper?
Where does she bite him? Well, I don't want to give everything away. I've got to keep some little secrets. [Laughs] I think people are going to be pretty happy about it.
Fair enough!
Were there any particularly funny moments you had while filming Eclipse?
You know, whenever you get into these fight scenes it gets a little funny because you're going after each other, and we've all been such good friends for three years now, so throwing a punch at your friend is kind of weird. Jasper has to train the Cullen family, so it was weird… I didn't want to throw punches at Nikki Reed or Ashley [Greene]! It just didn't feel right to me to hit a girl. I was raised very Southern, and that's very wrong where I come from.
Switching gears to your musical interests, do you and 100 Monkeys have any plans to tour outside of the U.S.?
I think we are [but] I don’t know how soon. We have the rest of our dates that are posted on our website, but we're going to try and get out to the U.K., and we really want to get down to Australia and South America. It's just about finding the right time; hopefully we'll get down there as soon as possible.
Check back for FEARnet's continued chat with Jackson Rathbone about his horror flick, Dread, his challenging guest role on Criminal Minds, and his upcoming action film, M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.
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