Jackson Rathbone: I'm really excited to start filming "Eclipse." I got a chance to read the script, and we get to go back into Jasper's backstory. They actually had to ask me about my equestrian experience. I told them I can gallop and trot and all that. I used to ride. It's been two hoặc three years since I've been on a horse, but I'm excited to get back up on the saddle.
MTV: So we're going to get to Jasper's Civil War backstory?
Rathbone: Yes, I get to shoot some Civil War stuff, and I'm also going to shoot a lot of fighting scenes. Which is great, because I just came off [M. Night Shyamalan's] "The Last Airbender," and I've been doing fighting for the last six months. So I'm ready to keep it on.
MTV: What kind of moves will bạn be pulling off? Just shooting guns? Obviously, it won't be highly-stylized martial arts stuff.
Rathbone: No, it won't be karate, it won't be kung fu, like the stuff we're doing in "Airbender." But even in "Airbender," the fighting styles I was doing were a little bit thêm loose, like đường phố, street fighting. And that's kind of what this is; it's about evading.
MTV: Why is that?
Rathbone: Well, we're talking about newborn ma cà rồng that can't control their urges — they can't really think very quickly. So if bạn just let them go to their instincts and evade and attack them from side to side, bạn could get them; but if bạn try and go after them through force, they're going to win every time. So it's all about evasion.
MTV: Are there training scenes in "Eclipse" along these lines?
Rathbone: It's interesting; there's a lot of cool scenes where Jasper trains the Cullen family on how to fight the newborns. He gets to train Emmett — and Emmett is a born fighter — so he's telling Emmett all these techniques, and Emmett thinks he could just best Jasper [during their sparring]. Jasper ends up getting the best of him, because it's a war mentality, not just a đường phố, street brawl. It's about thinking ahead; it's a chess game.
MTV: Cool. Will we see the scene where Jasper gets bitten?
Rathbone: Oh yeah, we have to see that. It's going to be great. I've been studying up a lot on the Civil War and that era. It really was a crazy time. It was all-out war on our own turf and between countrymen. That's terrible. It's an interesting time to see when Jasper was actually human and what his human form was and, when he gets turned, how intense and how dark he is. Then [we'll see] his realization of what he's become, him finding Alice and being redeemed bởi love.
MTV: And is that the first time we'll see your powers?
Rathbone: Actually, in "New Moon," we get a little glimpse. Inside the school.
MTV: How was it to film scenes where bạn were influencing the emotions of those around you?
Rathbone: It was fun. I just played it very naturally, like, if bạn have these special powers — like Edward has the ability to read minds — it's not like he's going to [get overly dramatic] and go, "You're hungry!" No, it's a natural thing, like the human ability to smell hoặc to hear is a natural ability. To affect the mental state of anyone around bạn [I depicted Jasper as] keeping it all right in the eyes. Just thinking it and transferring it through the eyes, which are the windows to the soul — even to the soulless.
MTV: And will it be clear to the audience that this emotion-manipulation is going on?
Rathbone: In "New Moon," when we see it? It's pretty obvious.
