Empire had a chance to talk with Xavier regarding his new film A Few Best Men and of course Eclipse!
Coming from the Twilight zone, this is quite a change of pace for you.
Yeah. It wasn’t a prerequisite, I wasn’t like, ’The next one better be a raunchy comedy or else.’ I think I knew what I was letting myself in for with Stephen Elliot at the helm. It’s so outrageous in parts.
If you can call Olivia Newton John as a middle-aged mum banging rails of coke outrageous.
Right, and felching condoms full of drugs out of a sheep’s arse. (We should point out, Ms. John’s character only snorts the coke, she doesn’t felch for it).
Given you weren’t looking for a raunchy comedy, why did you sign on for this exceptionally raunchy one?
I think it’s always good to be involved in something that pushes the envelope. The worst reaction you can get to a movie is indifference, so if you can cause a reaction on either side of that you’re on the right track. And when I read Dean’s script I was literally laughing out loud. Also, Australian comedies are kind of rare, so jumped at the chance to be involved.
And you have a nude scene. Any qualms about that?
Nah, it’s kind of hysterical. The situation is my character arrives home to miserable rainy London after a beautiful vacation (during which he proposes impulsively to his holiday fling Mia, Brent’s character). He gets back to his apartment, flings his wet clothes off, opens the door and everyone’s there, all his family anf friends throwing him a surprise welcome home party.
The role of Riley in Twilight was a huge break for you. How did you land that?
I’d been sending taped auditions off to America for quite a while around that time. It’s a bizarre process. yOu put yourself on tape then you send it off into the ether and you don’t know whose desk it lands on or even if anyone watches. So to even hear back is a surprise. I remember [the message] arriving and I thought, Oh wow. This is one of those movies where everyone’s got the lunch-box, and the pillow case and it’s advertised on the back of buses. I was sure it was never going to happen, but I thought Why not? I found out it had come down to me and three other guys.
Any idea who they were?
I don’t actually. But i flew myself to Vancouver to meet David Slade the director. He was very kind and had a lot of interesting things to say about the character.
Can you talk a bit about the character, for those not as familiar as some with the Twilight world?
He operates as kind of the bad guy in the film, although I think he’s a little more complicated than that. When you first meet him, he’s got the world at his feet. He’s a budding university student with a bright future. Then he gets attacked by a mysterious vampire, who turns out to be Victoria, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character – she’s amazing by the way, so talented. I felt as if there was something Blade Runner-esque about him, as if he’d had his humanity snatched away from him and that’s where the remorse and his genuine hatred for humanity came from – the fact that he isn’t human any more. There’s also this kind of Macbeth/Lady Macbeth relationship with him and Victoria, where she has him under her spell and he has to do her bidding. It seemed to me the deeper you dug, there was a well of stuff there. Even though it’s a commercial film and it’s more about the love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob, I thought it was important to investigate [Riley] and come up with something more than your typical sneering bad guy.
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Via Team Twilight
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