Taylor Lautner Shirtless Scenes in Twilight Effectively Ruined His Career
Who could have thought.
The Twilight saga has evolved from a worldwide phenomenon to a cringe-worthy movie franchise which, however, still enjoys massive fan love (even though some people insist they only do their Twilight marathons ironically).
Despite the fact that it has kickstarted the careers of its main stars, Twilight was not an easy ride for some of the actors. And it turns out that one part of the iconic Twilight trio, Taylor Lautner, who portrayed werewolf Jacob Black, had his entire acting career influenced by his part in the vampire romance movies — and not in a good way.
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The role of Jacob Black was physically demanding — up to a point when the Twilight creators almost recast Lautner after they doubted he was able to bulk up enough muscles to portray Jacob after he assumed his werewolf form. However, the actor managed to retain the role by training hard and gaining muscles, therefore securing himself tons of shirtless scenes.
However, not only did Lautner not enjoy much about them, as the weather on set would almost always be "horrendous" and he simply got cold without his shirt, but also they kind of ruined his career.
"One, when we film these movies in like horrendous weather conditions and in the books it's always suppose to be cold and gloomy and the sun can never be out so that's not fun," the actor shared at the Breaking Dawn: Part 2 press junket (via). "And then the second thing is, I'm always the only person with my shirt off, so...I wish just everybody could, you know, do it once and then you know, it would make me feel more comfortable."
After the Twilight saga was over, Lautner did receive a lot of role suggestions, but many of them were about him taking his shirt off with no particular reason. As an actor, Lautner was not particularly interested in that, so he would turn all those offers down... Until there were no more offers.
As of now, Lautner is no longer such an idol and a movie star as he was previously. After the end of the Twilight series, he filmed Grown Ups 2 that was released in 2013, as well as appeared on the Ryan Murphy comedy horror series Scream Queens in 2016.
Recently, Lautner and his girlfriend Taylor Dome announced they got married after one year of being engaged. Previously, the actor said that his girlfriend will take his last name, which would effectively make her his full namesake, but the couple has not disclosed whether that is true as of now.