Q: What made you say yes to Remember Me; you are in the position to say yes or no to a director to choose which movie you want to be in or which movie you don’t want to be in?
A: Kind of. You get certain offers and stuff, but with this, it was before Twilight came out, and I read the script and I wanted to do another job before Twilight came out. I didn’t end up doing one, but that was one of the things I read. So with this, usually every single young guy who is a lead is often such a stock character. But Tyler wasn’t really coming from an obvious place and wasn’t ending up in an obvious place either, so it gave you much more to work with, and it could be more of a character piece. There are certain things about generic films where you have to do certain things and perform in a certain way, and it doesn’t really make sense. I think that’s why this is kind of a little bit weird in that respect, it doesn’t really fit what you’d expect from this kind of drama.
Q: With Remember Me, were there certain aspects of the character you could empathize with? He’s a guy who likes to do his own thing…
A: Yeah, in a lot of ways, I saw right from the beginning that he was quite similar to me, and I kind of tried to tailor it to be even more similar, but then the more I tailored it, the more it became a fictional creation. But yeah, I’ve been saying there’s a kind of moment where, I think it’s the end of the adolescent period, where you think that you have to be an individual so much and you want to stamp your identity on everything. I mean, you get to your early 20s and you are much more accepting of being part of the world, and not wanting to drive everything away from you all the time, and I kind of had that when I was in my early 20s.
Q: Would you ever stand up for yourself to the point where you are going to fight with authority, like the character?
A: I know, that’s what one of the main things I liked about it; there are certain things which are like fantasy scenes of mine. It was quite satisfying, even the way he fights. It was all in the script, it said he fights like a pitbull, and I was just like, ‘Yeah, I want to fight like a pitbull!’
Q: Were you at all intimidated by Pierce Brosnan in real life?
A: I went to meet him for dinner just before we started shooting, and he’s a really nice guy. He’s kind of suave and he does look exactly the same all the time. He has great posture. He does this funny thing when we’re out at a restaurant and there are people looking over at him, and it’s a kind of posh French restaurant so there are a lot of older, banker type looking people and they obviously had no idea who I was, and they were obviously just looking at him and making a little joke or whatever, and he goes up to their table and introduces himself to everybody at that table, and you can see that they all really like him – I don’t know what he said. He was introducing me as his son to people. (laughter)
Q: Did this role feel very different from the other roles that you have played?
A: Yeah, definitely, there’s certain things about it; you can improvise quite a lot more, especially in comparison to the Twilight films. The whole point of the Twilight films is that there are so many hindrances as to what you can do, whereas with Tyler, it’s kind of, it’s the first time I played somebody who is just the kind of normal guy, without anything fancy, or without a period element, or without some kind of social inadequacy. He is literally just a normal guy, with no specific handicaps, and it was fun.
Q: How did you regard Tyler’s relationship with Caroline; they kind of need each other, don’t they?
A: Yeah, but it’s like, at the same time, she’s the kind of key or something. It’s not like they’re going to meet up and everything changes in their lives or whatever. It’s not saying people’s lives completely change, just having a couple of days of happiness, or a couple of minutes of happiness, can literally turn around your entire life, and you just have to be aware of it, you just have to make them sort of see things just a little bit more
Q: When will you shoot the last Twilight movie?
A: I think I’m going to have to do “Breaking Dawn” at the end of this year, so I’m not sure when.
Q: What’s your best disguise in order to be able to walk down Oxford Street?
A: Biting your nails works quite well! Actually, I was in HMV on Oxford Street on Christmas Eve buying Christmas presents, and not a single person noticed. And here were posters [Twilight and New Moon] everywhere! It’s been years since I’ve done anything like that, and I think people just aren’t looking in the same way in London
Q: How do you deal with fame?
A: I just try to keep working. Even ten years ago, Leonardo DiCaprio always talked about being able to take a break away from everything, but I don’t think you can do that anymore. I think you need to capitalize and steer your career at the same time, because I think that, especially with a thing like Twilight, where it is literally such a huge universe…
Q: Is it a burden to you, but it opens doors?
A: It opens doors and it closes others, like anything does. You can say, ‘Oh if I was still unknown, then no one would judge me’, but at the same time, nobody would give a shit either (laughter). It’s a weird little balance. And most of the time, you are just completely guessing what you should do, so I guess I’m just doing scripts that I think are good.
Q: Did the Twilight fans make shooting Remember Me in New York quite difficult?
A: The fan situation, completely, honestly, they were lovely. They would completely respond to people saying – “Please go and wait over there or something”, even when there were tons and tons of them, but it was like the paparazzi who were unbelievable. They were like jackals.
Q: You said that you never asked a girl on a date like Tyler does. Is that more difficult now you’re famous?
A: Yeah, I would imagine. I’m much more self conscious now because you can’t afford to like fail. You’re kind of afraid of succeeding too so you just kind of, you know, anyway you look at it…
Q: In what ways has this success changed things for you?
A: It changed more in America. I always thought it was going to be like this. I came out last Christmas and it was kind of… it was all pretty low key again and I always thought it would’ve changed by now in London but it hasn’t really. People just don’t look for the same stuff, but in America, I guess it is different.
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