New Jackson Interview with The Cinema Source

New Jackson Interview with The Cinema Source

Jackson Rathbone is best known for his role as vampire Jasper Hale in The Twilight Saga and as Sokka in The Last Airbender. Now, the 26 year-old hopes to carve an interesting niche in his young career as Nick Green, a teen secretly working as a spy for the U.S. government, in the teen web series Aim High, which is being financed by Facebook and AOL’s teen video website Cambio. Rathbone shared with us what he first thought of the series.

“When I first read the script, it was brought to me as both a producer and actor,” Jackson recalls, “And I fell in love with the idea of being able to incorporate new technology and social media to get this show across and out there into people. I thought it was funny and charming and a word I am going to use is adorable. I found the character of Nick Green adorable.”

“It was one of those things,” he continues, “He was a lot like I was in school. I just never really had my place and I’d kind of wander between different groups and every crush on the pretty girl didn’t know I existed and I was a spy for the U.S. government at night, so that’s just like my high school experience, a tale as old as time.”

Jackson talked about the differences between filming a movie or TV series and filming a web series.

“I think no matter what process you are in, whether it’s television or film or web series, you’re still trying to do the same thing, which is be real and in the moment and it strikes the story in a way that makes people feel for you and feel for the story and feel for the characters your portraying,” he explains, “But at the same time, with film and TV, you do have a lot longer to do that. With Aim High, we had eight days. We were shooting

from the hand, foot, we planned it, we spent a lot of time in preproduction getting organized and even during the shoot, two days into the shoot, we’re behind.”

“And so, that night, we had to figure out what we were going to change and what we were going to fix in order to go forward and finish the project so we couldn’t go over our days,” Rathbone adds, “And so, that’s what we did. You can be behind on a film you’re shooting for six months, you’re not going to worry about the second day being behind. But if you’re on a shoot that’s eight days, the second day, if you’re behind, that can cause all hell.”

Currently, there are six “webisodes” planned for Aim High. We asked Rathbone if it could go beyond that or into other mediums like television or feature film.

“It could evolve,” Jackson says, “It’s one thing, we could go into season two as a webisode. We could even go as far as like season six as webisodes and then, go into a film or then go into a movie. I don’t think it’s going to be like The Office where it keeps changing and it keeps going into these different things or maybe not like a BBC show, where at the end of the second season, everybody dies. It’s one of those things.”

“It’s something that’s never been done before, so right now, we can’t really tell what the future holds,” he adds, “Because the future is something that we’re kind of predicting with this show and with Facebook, Cambio, Warner Bros., and all of the amazing people that have come on this project. We’re kind of waiting to see what the future will bring. It’s going to be really cool to have online. Pretty soon, you’re going to have people wear a 3D bodysuit and vest in the show itself and it’ll be like the movie Gamer. And people are going to look back and be like, ‘It all started with a webisode called Aim High.’”

We also asked Jackson what it was like to do the series’ action scenes in such a short time.

“I’m getting into street brawls all the time, man, with my knowledge of film fighting,” Rathbone jokes, “I get into fights all the time when I miss people and they fall over. Anyway, no, I’ve been doing a lot of training since I worked on The Last Airbender and the end of the Twilight films, I did a lot of training for those. And I kept up with it and I kept in really close contact with the stunt guys who trained me, they’re really good friends of mine still, and I brought them on board to be the stunt coordinator and choreographer for Aim High.”

“And so I know the guys, trust the guys, they teach me the choreography real fast, I learned it pretty quickly, and we just moved through it,” he continues, “Once in a while, stupid people want to get in fights and sometimes, you just got to learn how to defuse the situation and sometimes, you just got to kind of step up and put your hand out and sometimes, you got to throw down. I always work out, so I’m not really going to run.”

Rathbone tried to describe the web series for us for those who may not be so familiar with the concept.

“Well, it’s dealing with guys, it’s a social series, which is new in and of itself,” he explains, “It’s basically, when you think about it, like a television show made for your computer screen and made to kind of draw your Facebook. It’s kind of the next step in evolution of Facebook and the way you cop it.”

“It’s basically, throw your away your TV,” Jackson continues, “Even if you hook it up to your TV, your still watching it from your laptop. Your laptop apparently becomes your receiver and your TV becomes a big television monitor, it becomes a big computer monitor, that’s it.”

Jackson also talked about what he plans on doing next in equally jokey fashion.

“I want to go back to my house and I probably want to see my cat,” Rathbone remarks sarcastically, “It’s probably going to jump on me. The dog’s going to want to go for a walk. My friends are going to be like, ‘What’s up, dude? How’s it going?’ Nothing immediately after.”

We replied by asking Rathbone if he plan on picking a few fights in his local bar.

“Exactly, man,” Jackson says, “Now you’re getting into the Jackson Rathbone way of life. No, I got a couple of projects, I got Breaking Dawn: Part 1 coming out November 18th, I’m very excited about that. I got a couple of movies that I’m working on.”

“I got my music with 100 Monkeys and set up a record label, Happy Cats Music,” he adds, “And we signed up a band called Breeding Horse Express, a Southern rock band, and their album’s already out, but we’re going to have it on ITunes in about a month or two, so we’re excited about that.”

Jokingly replying to him that Jackson was slacking with all his commitments, we asked if he only worked one day a week.

“Yeah, not really, I sleep a lot,” Rathbone answers, “I’m lazy. I’m actually going to take a nap right now.”

Source => The Cinema Source / Via => JRathboneFB