LOS ANGELES — First things first: In addition to being "Twilight" Tuesday, it's also Election Day. And since we're all about getting out the vote, we'd like to remind you: The right president could mean a stronger economy, which could then lead to more money for "Twilight" sequels! So vote, and then come back here for some cool Kellan Lutz news.
Seriously, we'll wait.
OK, welcome back. There is a proud tradition of casting big-name actors like Keanu Reeves, Chevy Chase and Christopher Walken in music videos. Now that "Twilight" star Kellan Lutz is watching his own career take off, he's eager to similarly embrace his inner rock star — a notion we're sure Emmett Cullen could understand.
For this week's "Twilight" Tuesday, MTV News teamed with our friends at Soundtrack to exclusively join Kellan as he shot a video for Hinder's new single "Without You." He spoke to us about playing an evil boyfriend, his plan to surprise fans waiting in line for "Twilight," and even introduced us to his newest friend: Moo-Moo the cow.
"I play the bad boyfriend," the 23-year-old heartthrob said. "Aimee [Teegarden from 'Friday Night Lights'] is the sweet cheerleader girl ... who shouldn't be with me. I lead her life on the wrong track until she gets rid of me, and her life finally goes to where it should go. She graduates high school and gets a good job, while I am left in the dust."
"It's awesome to have people who are talented at acting, instead of ourselves," said Hinder frontman Austin Winkler, who helped select the actors for the video from the band's Take It to the Limit album. "We're all so excited to have Kellan Lutz. ... It's good to have someone like him in our video. He's done 'Twilight,' and he's on '90210' the series, so it's exciting to have some talented people in the video."
"My 'Twilight' world is, like, obsessive," laughed the 19-year-old Teegarden, a huge fan of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novels. "I got the first book [because] everyone was like, 'Oh my God, you have to read "Twilight," ' and I'm like, 'All right, sure.' ... I picked it up on my way to the airport, and I was like, 'Whatever.' Then, literally, on the plane, I was crying and laughing! And the person next to me, I'm sure she thought I was on some sort of crazy drugs. ... I got off the plane, went to the store and bought the next two. Then I literally locked myself in my room for hours, just reading."
"This isn't my first music video. I did Hilary Duff's 'With Love' music video-slash-fragrance ad," Lutz recalled. "[Music videos] are different. It's quicker. Everything is all planned out. You don't really have time to do so many shots, because you don't have a month or two months or three months to do a music video. [And there is] no script at all."
That lack of script proved particularly interesting when Lutz and Teegarden — both of whom claim they've never gotten into a serious argument with a significant other — needed to improv an argument.
"There's a scene where Amy sees me talking to another girl, flirting around," he explained. "Then she starts to cry. And, bless her heart, I start yelling at her, and it's so weird, because I've never yelled at a girl before. It felt really out of character for me to be saying this stuff and act the way I did for that scene. Hopefully it looks great, but it felt funny."
With only 17 days to go until the "Twilight" release, Lutz can already see the hype swelling and said the Hinder video is just one of many signs that the Cullen clan is taking off.
" 'Twilight' is such an amazing project, and I think it opened up doors for all of us castmembers," he said. "From doing TV to movies to doing this, I think it really did help with having me onboard.
"When they told me that we took over Harry Potter's [release] date, I was like, 'Yes! It's about time!' " Lutz continued. "I am really excited for it to come out, and I'm really excited to hopefully do the other books, if we are allowed to.
"Just because," he added with a sly grin, "in the third book, there is a lot of Emmett in there."
Kellan also said he's been getting recognized more in public — and if he has his way, he might soon be making an appearance at a theater near you. "I went to a football game recently at a high school right by my house [and people came up to me], but to me, I don't think they're Kellan's rabid fans; I think they're Emmett's rabid fans," he laughed. "If fans were to spend the night and camp out to see our movie, that would mean so much to me. ... There's all those big movies like 'Star Wars,' 'Spider-Man' and 'Indiana Jones,' where people wait in line for days just to be able to see it first and be the first one to comment. I told my roommates this, because we were talking about it: I would love to dress up and pop in and out [of the lines] and scare them."
Something tells us, however, that fear would be the last thing those lucky fans would feel. Because in real life, the affable actor is every bit as big a teddy bear as Emmett is — and he insisted that he has no problem when fans blur the lines between the two.
"If I [get typecast], bring it on," he laughed. "Because Emmett is the coolest guy ever. ... He's someone who likes to have fun. He's not the typical jock, where he says mean stuff and beats his girlfriend up or anything like that. He's such a fun-loving guy, and with how he interacts with Bella, it's all out of love. He's just a big teddy bear, and he enjoys life to the fullest."
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