Taylor Lautner was often praised for his jacked physique while playing werewolf Jacob in the “Twilight” movies, but he’s now revealing the experience subsequently left him suffering from issues surrounding body image.
In an episode of “The Squeeze” — the new podcast he co-hosts with wife Taylor Dome — Lautner explains how “being viewed as having this unbelievable body” affected him after the fact.
“When I was in it, when I was 16 through 20 years old, starring in this franchise where my character is known for taking his shirt off every other second, no, I did not know that it was affecting me or going to affect me in the future with body image,” Lautner explained, as reported by People.
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“But now looking back at it, of course it did, and of course it is going to,” he continued.
“It was my entire life,” he shared. “In the first movie, I was 140 lbs., and in ‘New Moon’ I was 175. So yeah, that wasn’t my natural body. I had to work very hard for it and very, very hard just to maintain it.”
In order to maintain those muscles, Lautner recalled that for years he was “forced to be in a gym multiple times a day, six days a week.”
When the franchise ended, however, he found himself “rebelling” against that gruelling regimen.
“What happens when you don’t want to see a gym?” he asked. “You start losing the eight pack. I started having more normal of a body. I remember one of the first times seeing it online was very tough. I was filming a movie called ‘Run the Tide’, and my character in that is not supposed to be a bodybuilder or ripped guy in any way. I thought I looked fine. But then seeing it online where they put the side-by-sides of me shirtless in the ocean in a scene from that movie compared to me in Eclipse or whatever and being like, ‘Wow, he’s let it all go.’ I was like, ‘Oh, man. Did I really let it all go?’ I didn’t think I looked that bad.”
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He concluded by sharing what that experience ultimately taught him.
“Your body can look unbelievable, you can be ripped, shredded, whatever you can lose weight, you can put on muscle, and if you’re not healthy mentally, then that’s all for nothing because that can work against you,” he said.
“Don’t find happiness in what you want your body to look like,” Lautner said. “Don’t think just because you lose the 20 lbs. or put on the muscle, you’re going to wake up and look in the mirror and all of a sudden be happy. That’s not where you should be finding value.”
