Jackson Rathbone is one of many new acting faces of which the enormous runaway success of The Twilight Saga has spawned with his role as reformed vampire newbie Jasper Hale. It has led him to roles in films like S. Darko and Dread.
Now, Rathbone hopes to take his success even higher with another high-profile role as Southern Water Tribe waterbender Sokka in M. Night Shymalan’s film adaptation of the Nickelodeon TV animated series, The Last Airbender.
The 25 year-old first discussed the lengthy audition process for the role.
“Wow, man!,” Jackson recalls, “I originally started about three years ago and I originally auditioned for Prince Zuko. And I read for the casting director and I read again. Night came out to Los Angeles with a few of us and I read for him as Prince Zuko and we hit it off right then and there, but he wasn’t certain of me for that role. He said he liked me and he wanted to keep me in mind. And then, almost like a year later, he called me in for Sokka and I read for that. And then, we did a mix-and-match chemistry read in Philadelphia and as soon as Nicola [Peltz] and I read together, we just felt kind of a brother/sister dynamic.”
“It just kind of worked and everything kind of fell into place,” he adds, “And I found out a little bit later after that that I booked the role and it was just a matter of trying to balance it between Summit and Paramount and seeing if that could happen. And it did. They’re both amazing companies. They worked really closely together and a lot of Summit’s executives had been in Paramount previously, so there’s a lot of common bond there and I’m lucky for that and it all worked out.”
It was asked of Jackson how he felt with not one, but two big movies he’s in, this and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, happening to open right against one another.
“I’ll tell you after the weekend,” he replies, “I don’t know. It’s definitely an experience, but I’m blessed to be in movie that gets seen. Honestly, I’ve done a lot of projects that no one’s seen and I’m kind of glad about some of those projects.
I’m glad I did them. The one thing is I learn from everything that I do. At some point, you’re like. I’m glad I learned from that, but I’m glad no one saw it.”“One of the cool things that I try to do with my career is play as many different characters as possible, so I never feel like I’m competing with myself, even from one character to the next,” Rathbone continues, “I mean, even a two-hundred-year old vampire who is fighting his instincts at every beck and call is a little bid different than a 17 year-old warrior who becomes a rebel leader. It’s far different enough and the films are, I believe, different enough that they’re not really competing with one another, but, honestly, I believe are going to help each other a lot in the long run.”
Rathbone shared the breadth of his martial arts training he had to learn for his role as Sokka.
“It was different,” he says of it, “I think my training was really geared towards kung fu. The kung fu training that I did, which is Gong Li, which is a Power Fist Form, which is very aggressive, very strong movement, throughout my training. Then, into February really kind of started meetings with Night, really wanted to do more wrestling and grappling and make him less of a tactical fighter. He’s very brave and he’s going to go head first into any battle he comes up with.”
“I don’t have any superpowers, but I can certainly still take out the Fire Nation with a boomerang, so I think that’s pretty sweet,” Jackson adds, “I learned stick fighting for that, which was amazing. My sifu Dave and I would choreograph these really elaborate stick fighting fight scenes just for him and I just to do that were never going to make it into the film, just to practice and to practice doing choreography and everything.”
He spoke of what it was like in Greenland, where some scenes were filmed.
“It was pretty funny,” Rathbone remembers, “It was getting used to acting under very extreme circumstances. I think the environment formed it. It a took second, but it was fun. The first day of filming was extremely exciting and being up in Greenland was
extremely exciting. It’s one of those things that you never think you’re going to do and you get to do it and you’re like, really? This is amazing, this is a part of my life, and I’m going to forever remember it, and it will be documented on camera.”Rathbone also spoke of what it was like to work with director M. Night Shymalan.
“Night is one of the few directors that I wait for his next film,” Jackson says, “There’s a certain caliber of director that you’re like, well, I’m going to see what he does next and you’re really interested in it. And for me, it’s this kind of Kubrickian old-school cinema style that he has with these longer shots and the movie lighting he uses.”
“And it’s not America-centric, it’s not one of these directors that’s going to be constantly cutting, doing rapid-fire scenes,” he continues, “It’s much more old school and I really appreciate that. I have always been a huge [Stanley] Kubrick fan and an [Akira] Kurosawa fan and he pulls a lot from those directors. Yeah, it was a dream come true to be able to work with a director like that.”
Jackson also had a simply reply when he was asked what he thought about co-star Justin Ringer in the film, who plays the main hero Aang in the film.
“He was great,” Rathbone says of him.
Rathbone said he not only enjoyed working with his young co-stars, Ringer and Nicola Peltz, but all the young extras as well.
“Well, Sokka was kind of in charge of the Southern Water Tribe and definitely in charge of the kids and I worked very closely with all of them,” Jackson says, “They were such sweethearts, man. It was sad to say goodbye to them honestly at the end of the day. And it was an amazing experience getting to film in Greenland and it definitely informed your acting. Going from the Southern Water Tribe to this very kind of remote village setting and then, filming on the stage for the Northern Water Tribe gave it a certain kind of majesty.”
“Going from one to the other in this journey as brother and sister going from this hometown to this magnificent kingdom with the Northern Water Tribe, which is on this magnificent sound stage built in Philly,” he adds, “It was incredible. You’re talking like an actual running river and waterfall on set in this warehouse. It was amazing and I got to perform my first international set at a local pub on the set. Night hooked me up with the bar owner and I got to play an hour-long set on guitar and then, Frank Marshall and I got up with the house band and he sang “Stormy Mondays” and I got to play slide guitar. It was really fun.”
jackson-rathbone via cullenboysanonymous
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