The Stars of Twilight

Summer plans: Filming Anonymous with Vanessa Redgrave and Rhys Ifans; hiding from adolescent girls.

A year ago, Xavier Samuel was another struggling Australian actor hoping to break it in America. Now he's the face of the latest Twilight film, Eclipse. (He has his own poster here.) We got him on the phone to talk vampires Interview by Mickey Rapkin Photographs by Paola Kudacki June 2010 see the slideshow

I'm driving in a black-tinted car on the streets of Berlin.

This is how I roll, man!

No, but there is a lot of green screen, a lot of special effects. They're really re-creating the London from that time. It's going to be quite visually spectacular. I play the Earl of Southampton. He's one of the only people that Shakespeare ever dedicated his work to.

There's a lot of speculation about that. Historically, some scholars have theorized that Southampton was Shakespeare's lover. But the film is about the authorship of the plays—who actually wrote them.

Maybe the Earl of Oxford. In this film, Shakespeare was some illiterate actor who was putting his name to plays he didn't even write. It's a thriller.

I did the audition from Sydney. I put the audition down on tape and sent it over.

I've been doing that for quite a while—doing these auditions from Australia and sending them out. I don't know whose desk they land on, or if anyone even watches them. To hear back was a surprise. I flew to Vancouver on a maybe. It was me and four other guys. And I was shooting before I knew it.

I watched the first film on the plane, on the way over to Vancouver. Then I went straight to the bookstore.

Yes, I was flipping through the book, thinking: Where's Riley? He's whittled down to one line. But in the film, we venture into the world of Riley and watch him assembling this newborn army. It's more action-packed. And it gives me something more to do, thankfully.

There was no neck biting. I threw a vampire off of a burning car. I also threw a massive log with one hand. The log was attached to a hydraulic system. It made me look really strong.

It is a bit like the first day of school. But I felt like part of the family.

We bonded quite early. We just kind of hit it off from the very beginning, rehearsed a lot of stuff, and talked about this almost Lady Macbeth kind of relationship.

You see that Shakespeare reference I just made? [laughs] But she manipulates him in that way.

The director would yell Action! and this guy puts a stick in your face. That stick is the wolf. They didn't teach that at drama school. I must have been sick that day.

We have cult meetings at midnight, somewhere near the Hollywood sign.

When Xavier Samuel arrived in Vancouver last summer, he didn't make it far past baggage claim before he started making headlines. With just a few offbeat Australian flicks under his belt, the sandy-haired 26-year-old had been chosen to play newborn vampire Riley, the latest heartthrob in The Twilight Saga. Almost instantaneously he was being hailed as Robert Pattinson's doppelgänger and couldn't get coffee without seeing flashbulbs.

"It was all very sudden, not just with the paparazzi but also with being cast in general," says Xavier, who's been acting since high school. "I did an audition from Sydney on tape. Then I got word that it was down to four guys—and that I was one of them." (Rumor has it he beat out Channing Tatum and Harry Potter's Tom Felton for the part.)

But the role of Riley was a perfect fit—and Xavier had a blast hanging out on the set of Eclipse. An indie-rock aficionado who has recently been digging The Magnetic Fields and The xx, Xavier joined in on periodic jam sessions with fellow guitarists Robert and Jackson Rathbone. (Xavier travels everywhere with his old Yamaha C-40.) And he bonded with Bryce Dallas Howard—his on-screen love interest, vampire trainer Victoria—who thought she was helping him get acclimated with stateside pop culture when she bought him a DVD box set of Lost. "People think that there's, like, one public phone in Australia and that we all ride kangaroos to work," the Adelaide native jokes. "They're surprised we do actually get American TV and things there."

After a few months of couch surfing in Los Angeles post-Eclipse, Xavier took off for Berlin, where he's been filming the Roland Emmerich–directed Anonymous, an Elizabethan thriller that contests the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. "It's been lots of tights, pantaloons, and riding around on horses—definitely a change of speed," he says. "To go from Stephenie Meyer to Shakespeare? You can't really make a bigger jump than that."

"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" introduces new villain Riley (adorable Aussie Xavier Samuel). The character doesn't have a huge part in Stephenie Meyer's third novel, but it looks like he's getting a bigger part in the movie adaptation. Riley is spotted a handful of times in the film's second official trailer, and he was in one of only two character photos that director David Slade shared on Twitter (in case you're wondering, the other photo was of Taylor Lautner as Jacob). Now Riley has his very own "Eclipse" poster. All this exposure for the character begs the question: Who exactly is Riley?

In the story of "Eclipse," Victoria's still bent out of shape over the death of her beau James in "Twilight," which she blames on Bella. All of her previous attempts to exact revenge upon Edward for killing her mate failed. Not easily deterred, Victoria travels to the Seattle area and creates an army of newborn bloodsuckers, hoping that with their aid she'll finally be able to defeat the Cullens and kill Bella. One of the first humans Victoria turns into a vampire is Riley Biers (the character didn't have a last name in the book), described as young, handsome, and (after being turned into a vampire) with bright red eyes.

As the more mature newborn, Riley is tasked to retrieve Bella's scent and later, corral the rest of the newborns to Forks for a showdown against the Cullens/La Push wolf pack alliance. "Audiences can expect a vicious battle," says Samuel, "And I think audiences can also expect a few surprises. Riley and his newborn army are an unstoppable force."

But there's more to this vampire baddie... he's in love!

Not only is Riley Victoria's right-hand vamp, he's also her puppet boy. He loves her and serves her faithfully, but of course she's still in love with James and is only using Riley to get him to do what she wants. "Remembering that Riley still has some human blood pumping through his veins was an important thing to consider when I was approaching the role," Samuel shares. "He's not a purely evil monster."

Come to think of it, maybe Riley's not a villain after all. Perhaps all the attention he's getting in the film will set up his story as one of betrayal, despair, and heartbreak. Whatever it's going to be, I'm excited and can't wait to see how it all pans out on the big screen.

What do you think? Are you more invested in the character of Riley?