Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Kellan Lutz for Interview Magazine


Kellan Lutz for 'Interview' magazine
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MARK JACOBS: Hi, Kellan? Where are you right now?

KELLAN LUTZ: I am in my backyard in L.A. hanging out with my two dogs.

JACOBS: Who are your dogs?

LUTZ: Kola is a shepherd-husky mix I adopted from the Compton animal shelter. Kevin is the newest, most adorable member of our family. He’s a Chihuahua. I found him on the street when I came back from one of my trips.

JACOBS: You spent time on a dairy farm in Iowa while you were growing up?

LUTZ: Iowa is where the big farm was, where my grandparents lived. After my parents divorced, we would visit them. My mom would send me out to the pigpen, where we had these huge, huge pigs. I would stand there for six hours holding a hose, watering pigs. They’d dive in the mud and shake it off, and I’d go home covered in it. I loved the whole thing of getting wet and dirty and then getting in a warm bath.

JACOBS: You also have experience spraying crops and building silos. Are you aware of how this story reads in New York and L.A.? Anything involving uncontrived hard labor is irresistible to the style industry.

LUTZ: I’d rather do manual labor than sit behind a desk. And as my grandparents got older, I’d fly out there and help out around the farm. We’d tear barns down; we’d build barns. I’d rather be outside rolling hay or driving the tractors.

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JACOBS: How old were you when you got the Abercrombie & Fitch cover?
LUTZ: Eighteen. I was actually working in L.A. at an Abercrombie to make friends. I had no friends.

JACOBS: On the sales floor?
LUTZ: I was selling clothes. But I believe my personality helped, because I was the worst folder. I just couldn’t care to do it. I felt like I had ADD. I would just goof around and shoot rubber bands everywhere. Somehow the manager didn’t fire me, and I became a greeter, when you have to stand outside, you know, topless, and kind of finagle people into the store. Then Abercrombie had an audition, and my agency sent me out. I met Bruce Weber, and they chose me. I wasn’t the strongest, most fit, best-looking guy on that shoot, but somehow Bruce put me on the cover. I was just lying on the grass playing with this beetle, and they used that shot. I was still working at the store when the magazine came out two months later. I was just very lucky, and that opened up doors to acting.

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JACOBS: Unlike some actors, you don’t seem to have a need to distance yourself from modeling.
LUTZ: It’s weird that the world sees modeling as a negative. It just blows my mind how many people think that because I was a model, I think I’m pretty and that I can use my looks to get ahead. I’m not pretty!

JACOBS: You really don’t think you’re pretty?
LUTZ: It’s funny when people say you have sex appeal or call you the next Brad Pitt. I just laugh. I’m not that. I don’t want to be that. “You’re a sex icon.” Why? Because I played a vampire in a movie? It’s all very unearned. If I had the best freaking abs in the world or if I looked like Brad Pitt does in Fight Club [1999], then cool, but I’m not starving myself. I eat what I want, and I’m not a workout fiend. My genetics are good, but they aren’t crazy He-Man style. I don’t get it, but I appreciate it. [laughs]

JACOBS: And sometimes you just like to go on a shirtless run with your dog, and people need to deal with it.
LUTZ: I don’t see why it’s special. I know a lot of people who run shirtless because they don’t want their clothes to get sweaty. I’m just a normal person. And I have four paparazzi who sit outside my house all day.

JACOBS: So you have four very different films coming up.
LUTZ: I’ve had a great run with great projects. Especially the new ones. I love this industry. It keeps you young; it really does.

JACOBS: You’re pretty young.
LUTZ: I’ll always see myself as young at heart. I mean, I’m 25, and some people see that as getting up there.

JACOBS: Who’s telling you you’re getting up there?
LUTZ: People are saying that you can’t play high school anymore and I’m like, “Thank god.” I want to be the Jason Bourne type. I don’t want to play high school.

JACOBS: You’re unapologetic about wanting to be an action star.
LUTZ: It’s all about goals. If you just take whatever comes to you, then you’re not going to get anywhere. The more you say it around town or in meetings, it starts happening. That’s what’s going on right now. People are seeing me as the guy who wants to get hurt, who wants to break a bone, get bruises. And that’s how it was growing up with six brothers. I got beat up, and I beat up people. I have no real tattoos. I wear my bruises and tons of scars as my tattoos. And I’ve grown up loving action movies. I’d love to work with Sylvester Stallone, and I almost had the chance to in The Expendables [out August 2010], but that didn’t work out because of scheduling. I’d love to work with him and Mickey Rourke, Matt Damon, Daniel Craig, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme. . . . Bloodsport [1988] was one of my favorite movies. I feel like there’s only so many roles out there and such a surplus of actors that if you don’t have a goal, you just get lost.

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