"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

In three years, Taylor Lautner transformed from an unknown actor into one of the most popular teen idols today as a result of his role as wolfman Jacob Black in the enormously successful Twilight film franchise.

Now the 19 year-old scores his first lead role since the Twilight series in the action film Abduction. Lautner talks about what it was like to now star in a film alongside plenty of veteran Hollywood talent.

“I wasn’t really thinking about that while I was filming,” he says, “And it was kind of hard to think about it that way when you have Sigourney Weaver next to you and Alfred Molina and Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs.”

“The filmmaking process was a major team effort,” Taylor adds, “But it was a little different feeling because you’re on set every single day and there’s a lot of work and a lot of preparation involved, so it was a little different. But I couldn’t have done it alone.”

In the film, Taylor plays teenager Nathan Harper, who discovers that his parents are not who he has long thought they were. Taylor talks about the various stunts he does in the film, including a scene where he slides down an awning.

“The stunts were a lot of fun for me,” Lautner replies, “I was excited about those. I was excited about all the stunts from the very beginning. And when I slide down the giant glass awning in the baseball stadium, that was actually never in the original script. I don’t think it ever was in the script.”

“We just were scouting the location of the baseball stadium one day,” he continues, “And we saw this huge thing and we said we had to find a way to incorporate that into the movie somehow. So that was a lot of fun and I’m lucky they allowed me to do it. The stunts were great, but more importantly for me, this movie was really emotionally challenging. Just

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

to be able to dive into this character’s shoes and go on the journey that he goes on and face those emotions that he has to deal with are tough.”

Lautner talks about the toughest emotional scene he had to do in the film.

“Probably the scene with Maria Bello where she goes into my bedroom, has the conversation with me where she tells me that she’s not my real mother,” Taylor says, “That was a tough one, but I couldn’t have asked for a more talented actress opposite that.”

Taylor says the toughest fight scene he had to do is one that involves the man he had thought was his father, played by Jason Isaacs.

“That one definitely required the most preparation,” he recalls, “I started training in boxing three months before I went to Pittsburgh. I never boxed before and I definitely wanted to know what I was doing when I showed up on set, so there’s a lot of just training in general.”

“Then we got there,” Lautner adds, “Because it’s long, it’s a long fight, there’s a lot of moves, and if one of us is off by one punch or one block, we’re getting knocked in the face, to that was an important one, but it was also a fun one, it turned out great.”

Lautner was then asked if anybody got knocked in the face during the fight scene.

“I’m sure we did a couple of times,” Taylor replies, “But the good thing is we had those huge gloves on, so no injuries, but we were definitely roughing each other up a little bit.”

One particularly dangerous stunt, Taylor says, was being on the hood of a car.

“I really was on the hood of the car,” Lautner says, “The only thing is I did have two wires attached to my hip that somehow were attached to the underbelly of the truck. They were very loose, so I can slide around. It wouldn’t allow me to fly off

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

the car, but we were going 50-55 MPH. It was a lot of fun. I can say it wasn’t easy to convince the insurance company. to allow me to do that, but it happened. It was a lot of fun and it was definitely worth it.”

Taylor talks about how he felt working with his various veteran co-stars.

“I have looked up to them my entire life, so there was no need to play it cool,” he says, “But the way that I did that was simply by observing them. I probably could have asked them questions and stuff. and they would have definitely answered and gave me advice and I would have taken it. But I thought it was such an honor just to be able to work opposite them and just simply watch them and that was kind of big for me, bigger than just watching them act. I know Sigourney Weaver can act.”

“The biggest thing for me was watching them on set as people,” Lautner says, “They have been around for decades and they are one of our world’s most talented and experienced. actors, yet they are the most amazing people, the most caring people, and the hardest working people and that was the biggest thing for me to see.”

Directing Abduction is John Singleton, who has directed films like Poetic Justice, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and the classic Boyz N The Hood. Taylor talked about his experience working with him.

“It was great,” Lautner says of him, “We got along really well. We had a lot of fun together. The two of us kept the mood pretty light because we’re always pulling each other’s leg, but, no, we had a great time.”

Lautner talks about how he was able to portray Nathan’s change of emotion as he discovers the truth about his family.

“The biggest thing I would do to relate to this character after he’s discovered all this is try and take a step back and

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

imagine my life like that,” he says, “I would ask myself that question, if I found out today that my entire life was a lie, my parents aren’t who I think they are, they’ve been lying to me my entire life, where would I go? Where would I start looking for answers? Who would I trust?”

“And the truth is I could never answer that question and that’s exactly how Nathan feels,” Taylor adds, “See, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who he can trust, so he really doesn’t trust anyone, except for Karen, until the very end where he learns to put his trust into his real father. But it’s confusing and it’s heartbreaking.”

Taylor also shared the experience of filming in Pittsburgh.

“We filmed there for three months,” Lautner says, “That’s where everything was done. I enjoyed it. It was a good city. It’s a sports town, so I had a great time there.”

Lautner also talks about shooting the film inside the city’s PNC Park, during a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game.

“It was great,” Taylor says of it, “We filmed at the baseball stadium for five or six days. There was a real live baseball, so we kind of barged in. We only had 2 1/2 hours to film and get these shots of all of the audience. The audience, they’re there just to watch the baseball game and all of a sudden, they see a bunch of huge cameras and actors walking around, so they naturally turned around and start staring at the cameras.”

“So we hold up these huge signs that are saying ‘Please do not stare at the cameras,’” he adds, “Which of course makes them stare at the cameras that much more. So it was challenging not using extras, but having real live baseball fans there. But it allowed for the hued, the big-feeling environment.”

Taylor says that while Nathan has discovered he’s been living a lie in Abduction, he himself has been living the

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

dream.

“It’s true,” Lautner reveals, “I have. I have been living my own dream for the past three or four years. This project specifically has been the biggest dream come true for me. As an actor, it is, because I’ve never been able to challenge myself, but then, ever since I was a little kid, I always wanted to be involved in the moviemaking process, not only in front of the cameras, but behind the cameras as well.”

“And this is my production company’s first movie, so I had the opportunity to be involved in the project from the ground up and creating all the characters and creating the story, which was so exciting for me,” he continues, “So this project was the ultimate dream come true for me.”

Lautner also reveals just how early in the film’s involvement he was.

“I was there at the very original concept,” Taylor says, “I had a general meeting with Roy Lee, who was one of the producers on it at the time. And he was pitching me a bunch of projects that had scripts. At the very end of the meeting, he goes, ‘Oh, and I also have this project, but it’s just an idea at this point.’ And I’m like, alright, what is it? And he tells me, just the two-liner. That’s the best thing I’ve heard, so please let me know when you have a script on that. So I let him know I was really interested in the idea.”

“About a year went by, I didn’t hear anything on it,” he continues, “I was in Miami at the Super Bowl at the time and I got a call and he said, do you remember that idea that you heard called Abduction. I said, yes, what’s going on with it. They said, well, they’ve been writing the script for the past year and they want you to look at it. So they overnighted it to Miami and I couldn’t stop

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

turning the pages. It was even better than I remembered and at that moment is when I knew that that had to be my next project.”

Taylor talks about when he first became fully aware of how big he had become after the success of the Twilight films.

“This movie is probably the biggest personal target,” Lautner believes, “I knew that the Twilght franchise was exploding the very first Comic-Con I went to. And that moment for me is where we realized, wow, this is not your average movie. But for me, I loved that franchise, I loved that character, but as an actor, I wanted to go off and do different things. I want to be able to do play my own role and this was that for me. And to be honest, this probably is that moment.”

However, Lautner says that his goal is not necessarily to become the next big Hollywood action star.

“My goal is to continue to challenge myself to a wide variety of roles and genres,” he states, “Because actors that I looked up to my entire life, such as Tom Cruise and Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, they’ve never done the same thing over and over again. They’ve always continued to challenge themselves to this day.”

“I had a great experience with this,” Taylor says, “I loved the action. But what I loved most about this movie is does this have action in it? Absolutely, but it’s not just an action movie. I don’t like movies that are just shoot ‘em up, blow ‘em up, nonsense action movies. This has a great story, a great character, and I really describe it as being like an action-drama-thriller-romance. It has all those aspects in it.”

Taylor was asked how he felt watching the final cut of the film after being so heavily involved with it since the very beginning.

“I started seeing cuts of it very early,” Lautner says, “So it was interesting to see really, really

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

rough cuts and I must have seen twenty different versions before the premiere, which was exciting and it was so fun to be a part of. But it was definitely a surreal night for me at the premiere.”

He was also asked about what he hopes to achieve down the road with his newly-minted production company Tailor Made Entertainment.

“Like I said, it has always been a dream of mine since high school to be involved in moviemaking behind the cameras, so it was always a dream to form a production company,” Taylor says, “For this, this allows me to be involved with forming the character so much earlier, so by the time I show up to set, I know this character inside and out because I had a hand in creating him. So it’s actually really helpful as an actor to be involved that way. But I definitely would love to expand and I’m definitely interested in television and producing things that I may not necessarily act in. But, yeah, I’ll take it one step at a time, but that would definitely be a dream come true.”

Taylor was asked about what more he has to do for the Twilight series, which caps off its story with the two-part Breaking Dawn, of which part 1 comes out this November and part 2 comes out the following November.

“We filmed both parts at once,” Lautner says, “We’re done filming. I filmed Abduction last summer and when that was done, we went to Baton Rouge and we filmed both of them for seven months, which is a while, but all done. We’ll be promoting them for the next year and a half, but filming is over.”

Lautner was asked if he felt having both parts of the Breaking Dawn film in the can with them coming out exactly a year apart of one another was convenient for him.

“Yes and no,” Taylor answers, “It definitely sunk in on the last day of

"Yup, it's an 'AB'-duction Alright"

filming. We’re like, whoa, this is it. We are not coming back. It’s a weird feeling when you’ve played that character for so long and now all of a sudden, it’s done, it’s kind of hard to relate to.”