You may not have heard of Canadian actor Bronson Pelletier yet but you certainly will after The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens this week. Pelletier plays Jared, one of five werewolves that make up the 'Wolf Pack' in the much anticipated sequel to the 2008 film Twilight. In person he's a high energy, down-to-earth, twenty-something.
"Each character I portray I like to bring a little of myself to. I brought my jokester side to Jared, so he's a little bit of a jokester but a little more mature than the other wolves," he explains during a promotional trip to Toronto.
Jared is the second person to change into a wolf and is the right-hand to Sam Uley, the leader of the 'Wolf Pack'. Fans of the Twilight series seem to approve of Pelletier in the role and he already has a fan club on the social networking site Twitter. He got the career-making role the old fashioned way by auditioning and didn't know much about Twilight beforehand.
"I watched the movie and read the books after I got the role. I'm kind of glad it happened that way because I probably would have been more nervous in the audition," he admits.
Pelletier had no clue how strong the fan base surrounding the series was going in and said he was blown away by it. He credits author Stephenie Meyer for doing such a good job getting the cult-like following for the books even before the movies were made. He has a recent story about a screening of New Moon in Los Angeles where five thousand "Twihards" showed up.
"They were screaming at the top of their lungs," he tells me. "I threw my hat which I got for $15 at Target out into the crowd and people were fighting for it. It felt so surreal."
Before New Moon, Pelletier only worked in television and is best known for the Canadian teenage drama Renegadepress.com. Was making a film much different than working in television, I inquired.
"With film it's hurry up and wait and with television it's hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! You have to do 10 scenes a day and bang them off...time is money. Film is so chill and slack and you get to put more of your creativity into it," he states.
Playing a werewolf was something he wanted to do since seeing the film Underworld. He denies ever going through a werewolf phase but admits he's had weird dreams about them. How did it feel to finally play one then?
"It was great," he says. "We don't get to do the battle scenes like everyone else because it's CGI but just reading the script and knowing these wolves are us is amazing...I love it," he adds.
Pelletier shares some interesting tidbits on the process of being turned into a wolf on screen.
"We get cyber scanned, which is basically a huge Xerox of every angle and inch of us so when we change into the wolves it has that full effect. Each wolf has [the actors'] own individual eyes on them and that is pretty cool," he shares.
His biggest acting influences are Benicio Del Toro, Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp. He also has a great love of music but denies that punk rock, which is listed on his IMDb profile, is one of his favourites.
"That's a lie," he blurts out when I ask him. "It also says I'm a fancy dancer and I don't know how to dance. I'm a fan of some punk rock, I guess, but I love rap. A Tribe Called Quest, Jedi Mind Tricks...the good rap. Not the stuff that talks about drugs and is all negative."
His character Jared returns in Eclipse, the third Twilight film, in 2010. Pelletier wrapped shooting a few months ago and says he has a lot more screen time than in New Moon and is very happy with how it turned out. I'm sure his star power will only increase by the time it opens too.
Interesting... His IMDb profile is bit muddled up then? I hope he DOES love spaghetti though, otherwise I wouldnt know what to bribe him with, in order for him to join twitter xD
Love Love Bronson! <3
Thanks to http://ow.ly/CBME for the interview!
