Chances are you never saw Twilight, because chances are you’re not a 15-year-old girl (or her mom). But here’s the thing about the blockbuster and its sequel, New Moon—and for that matter, all the yet-to-come films in the teen-vampire series: They feature Taylor Lautner, a 17-year-old kid who is one of the luckiest actors in Hollywood. Two years ago, he was an unknown with credits in flicks like Cheaper by the Dozen 2. But then he landed a small part in Twilight, a movie based on a book he’d never heard of. He had four scenes, a few lines in each, and looked like a scrawny kid in a big movie. Then something happened that Lautner didn’t see coming. He nearly lost his job. The studio didn’t believe he had the stones (or the bulk) to play a convincing boy-turned-werewolf-turned-romantic-lead in the sequel. “They needed to understand he had that aggression,” says director Chris Weitz (who, by the way, made a film you did see, About a Boy). So Lautner hit the gym, hard, eating every two hours, packing on thirty pounds. “I tried to stay focused on the things I could control,” he says. Well done. Lautner kept his job, and the film’s entire marketing campaign was built around his new abs. “When a man transforms into a wolf,” Lautner clarifies, “all of his clothes get shredded. When he comes back to human form, he’s wearing ripped jeans, and that’s about it. It’s the way it was written. The great thing about this series is we stay true to the books.” Ah, to be 17.