His Career Ain’t in its Twilight: Kellan Lutz on Life and Movies
Since 2008, Kellan Lutz has garnered fame for his role as Emmett Cullen in the Twilight movie series. Millions of women, of all ages, have flocked to see the movies which have been box office successes. Vampires aside, Lutz’s latest role is in a movie based in a small town where people are trying to find work, keep jobs and make enough money to get by. It’s called Meskada and it’s out in theaters today, in Los Angeles, and can be seen on cable television on On Demand. The picture is timely based on how the current economy has hit small towns particularly hard.
Kellan shared with us his dream of one day owning a ranch in Denver, Colorado where he can house hundreds of dogs in need of homes. He was kind enough to give his perspective on the Target hero-dog story which CYInterview has been covering over these last few weeks.
Lutz also addressed recent reports by the NY Daily News, as well as other media outlets that have reported a possible relationship between him and 90210 actress AnnaLynne McCord. Given those reports, we thought it would only be fair to give Kellan a chance to discuss the matter. We believe this is an interview that all fans of Mr. Lutz and Twilight will enjoy, because he shares a perspective on many things that are important to him in his life and career.
Listen to the Kellan Lutz interview:
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Chris Yandek: How is the crazy life going?
Kellan Lutz: “Well, thank you for having me Chris. How is the crazy life going? I like to think of my whole life as being quite crazy. I love living the crazy life. I grew up being called Crazy Kellan. So I just kind of love, I laugh a little too much and why not. But as far as just how busy I’ve been, it’s great to be busy. I’d rather be busy than not having much to do. I kind of thrive on no sleep and multitasking. But I’m shooting Breaking Dawn [Latest Twilight Movie] right now. I’m in and out of Baton Rouge and that movie is going great and I’ve had a busy couple of years, really well planned and groomed, groomed projects that I’ve chosen.
I have a great team who has a great eye as far as you know the path where I want my career to be. So you know, 2011’s gonna be a really big year with Love, Wedding, Marriage coming out with Mandy Moore, The Killing Game, which I loved, big action movie, kind of like my own Bourne type of speak with Sam Jackson. Then Immortals comes out and that was directed by Tarsem [Singh] and I got to work with Mickey Rourke and Henry Cavill and Frieda Pinto and Luke Evans, just amazing, amazing actors and amazing directors and producers and then that’s when Breaking Dawn comes out too. So it’s going to be a big, busy year, 2011 and I’m just really blessed. I’m really grateful.”
CY: Well, a lot of small towns have been hit hard by the latest US Recession, Meskada, that’s where that comes in, follows a small community where things are for sure not financially easy on the families that live there. Some of the characters in the film are definitely willing to make illegal choices to make money. After being in this film, what are your thoughts on how small-town America has been hit by this current US Recession?
KL: “Well, the thing that really drew me to this project is I’ve seen it first hand. I grew up in parts of Iowa where you see the farming economy kind of digress and you see the small town. I just went back to Iowa to visit my grandparents for two days and they live in a small town Pocahontas, [Iowa] now and there’s one streetlight. There’s one bar or two bars, one pizza parlor, one bowling alley, a two-theater cinema.
It’s a small town. When you hear stories and you go to the local bars and you hear how people have to drive 200 miles to find a job or to work and then they have to bid and drop their rates for farming just to farm and get other acres, you know, you’re in a place where that’s all you can do and that’s all your town thrives on is farming in Iowa and agriculture. Then I got to go up to the Catskills and you see another group of small town people where when their jobs kind of take a hit, what more can you do. You have to drive hours away, you gotta work longer shifts just to support your family, to support yourself.
It’s really tough to see, but it’s really great to see the hope that these people have and it’s, I don’t know. It is kind of tragic – especially – a lot of people don’t know it goes on. Living in L.A., we complain about traffic, not, we don’t worry about not having gas to put in our car or a tractor to farm, so then you have to go and pick the wheat by hand or the corn by hand. You know, it’s really eye opening and I’m glad. That’s what really drew me to the movie is I’ve had experiences with that in Iowa. That’s great to be a part of something where you can shine some light on some issues that maybe America or the world doesn’t really take notice to.”
CY: We could say, the last how many years you’ve talked your mouth off about Twilight obviously and that’s what everybody wants to hear about, but more so than anything else, what is one thing you might never have shared to the public about being part of this franchise from any perspective?
KL: “That I haven’t shared with anyone.”
CY: Or maybe a perspective that’s overlooked.
KL: “Well, it’s definitely, it’s a big machine. I’m very thankful for it. But it is really tough to feel like, you know you’re just a small cog in the machine. There’s so many working pieces to it and I love being busy. I love doing independent movies where you know, you’re maybe more of a lead character, you have more insight, you have more say, you get to work with the actors a little more versus just having to sit in your trailer and you know, you kind of have to be there and I’m kind out of commission where I can’t do other projects until April.
Maybe I’m not working every day or maybe I’m working one day a week, but you still have to be there so I make the most out of it, but I definitely do miss when you’re not working all the time, you have more time to miss the things back home. It’s really, that’s why I try and fly back on the weekends as much as I can to spend time with my dogs because they’re only getting older and I’m gonna live a long time, but you know, my dogs lives aren’t as long as human’s lives.
You know, it’s one of those things where you do movies, I love doing film over television and I love traveling. I love playing different characters, but I find myself out of L.A. and away from my house seven months out of the year. So it’s really kind of a tough thing to be away from, your loved ones and my pets who are my, they’re really close to my heart. Thankfully I have amazing roommates who love them just as much as I do.”
CY: Did you have a chance to by any chance hear about the hero dog from Afghanistan that was put down by mistake a few weeks ago? Did you hear about that story?
KL: “No. What’s that story.”
CY: I’ll give you the quick story on this and we were talking about this. We interviewed Sgt. Terry Young, who was the owner of Target. Target and two other dogs saved 50 soldiers from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan and then was brought back to the United States to live with Sgt. Terry Young, got out of his yard and by mistake was put down at an animal shelter. I want your thoughts on that actually.
KL: “Really?”
CY: Yeah.
KL: “Why? Was it just an overpopulation of pets in that shelter?”
CY: They had numerous dogs in the same different little kennel areas, this dog was featured on Oprah last year. You can go take a look at it online, Target Dog and you can go to CYInterview.com. We’ve got comments from Mena Suvari and Mya of the North Shore Animal League. Are you surprised about the issues with euthanasia in this country and putting down dogs? You think this is an issue and a problem, this kind of stuff?
KL: “It’s my, like I can’t wait to have a ranch in Denver, Colorado, That’s where I really want to live, have a ranch, have a family and have, I want to adopt every animal I can and just have a huge ranch where I can just have hundreds of dogs there and I’ll take care of them and I’ll make sure it’s like all health reserved and like have a happy life and they can just adopt the dogs in a loving place, not in a caged place, but free to run.
Live kind of like, what was that? Old Yeller or like the dogs on the ranch. I just – it huts. Like it’s tough to see dogs being put down and any animal put down or any animal cruelty because they’re here on earth for us and when you put dogs down, like there’s gotta be – I still don’t understand like why, there’s places even in America that are full of green pastures that dogs can take care of themselves. They can hunt rats or cats can hunt rats, any animal can, I mean the survival animals.
Why couldn’t we just find like a state and have all the dogs and animals lived happily like humans never kind of established, places type of thing where it took away from environments. Just like when animals become extinct because of mankind. It’s so crushing. Leonardo Dicaprio works great with the tigers and trying to preserve them. I really look up to him and everything he does and I just never understood why there’s so many untouched areas. Why can’t we just have the animals live there and if you want an animal, go find one.
I had the best time going on a safari in Africa where you see all these happy animals. Like humans haven’t affected their kind of living arrangements and you get to see them way more up close than any zoo. I just, I understand kids want to go see animals and stuff and they cannot afford to go to Africa and do a safari, but taking the animals out of their habitat or destroying their habitat, like what did they ever do to us?
CY: I would imagine you have to deal with a lot of things given the fact the public is watching your every move. Given all the recent reports in the news media that have been based pretty much on perception and not fact, I’d like to give you a chance to clear up whatever relationship you have with AnnaLynne McCord.
KL: “(Laughs)”
Publicist: “We’re not gonna talk about that. (Laughs)”
KL: “She is a sweetheart. She is a sweetheart.”
CY: Is it hard though?
Kellan Lutz: “I don’t look at, people can write whatever they want to write. I don’t look at that stuff. My friends know me for who I am and they don’t bite into that stuff and it’s really funny to people who aren’t close to you who will read reports and anything like that. You know, I just don’t give them the time of day because if you don’t know who I am or what I’m doing with my life, then you obviously aren’t close to me and I don’t need to be close to everyone. So I have a really great group of friends who don’t bite into that stuff and you know, to each their own. But yeah, like you said, gossip is gossip and there’s barely any truth to anything.”
CY: Well, I appreciate you giving a perspective on that because we run these interviews on the record in their entirety and we do not print gossip. So I always appreciate a chance when a celeb can come by and say anything about any of that. I really appreciate that.
KL: “You’re welcome. Thank you.”
CY: Finally, what are you doing for the holidays quickly?
KL: “I did Thanksgiving with my father. I’m doing Christmas with my mother in Arizona.”
You can find out more information about Meskada at http://www.meskada.com
The photo used for this piece is credited to Dimitrios Kambouris – © WireImage.com. Image courtesy of http://www.wireimage.com.
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