Wolf packs and six-packs

“I was in Australia a week ago, at a red-carpet fan event with 4,000 screaming fans,” says Taylor Lautner, the 18-year-old actor who plays werewolf Jacob Black in The Twilight Saga.

“These ladies kept holding out their hands or their arms for me to sign. One arm had a massive tattoo of the entire Wolf Pack from Eclipse. She begged, ‘Taylor, can you sign that arm?’”

“The next day, at another event, the same girl showed up. She had my signature from the night before permanently tattooed on her.”

He sounds both flattered and abashed. That’s life though when you play Jacob, who spends most of the new The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in denim shorts and abbreviated tops that offer plenty of perspective on his muscular physique.

He’s considerably better dressed, in jeans, a grey sports coat and a white T-shirt, for an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, and unlike the tightlipped Jacob, he’s happy to discuss anything.

Even “the line,” as fans are already calling the bit in Eclipse in which Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and the two rivals for her affection, Jacob and the vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), take refuge at a camp in the woods from an army of fresh-born vampires called The Newborns.

Bella, an ordinary human, is freezing, and there’s nothing her cold-blooded boyfriend Edward can do about it – until Jacob steps forward and envelops her in a furry embrace.

“After all, I’m hotter than you,” he tells Edward, to the whoops and cheers of preview audiences who are still divided between Team Edward and of Team Jacob.

“It was hard keeping a straight face and saying that line,” Lautner admits.

As far as Bella is concerned, there is no love triangle: despite Jacob’s feelings for her, she remains head-over-heels in love with the earnest Edward.

“Jacob’s situation is frustrating,” Lautner says, “because he gets this close to Bella and then gets told no over and over again by her. But he’s persistent.”

Offscreen, he and Pattinson are good friends. “I only had a scene or two in New Moon (2009) with Rob,” Lautner says, “so I was really excited to work more with him in Eclipse.

“But the hardest thing about working with him is that we have to hate each other,” he continues. “He’s slapping my shoulder and I’m shoving him off me. We’re screaming and spitting in each other’s faces – but, as soon as they call cut, we’re laughing.

“I do get to kiss Bella in the movie,” he adds. “Woooo! She’s a fantastic kisser.”

Lautner was a virtual unknown when he was cast as Jacob. A native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his main interest growing up was karate, which when he was eight took him to Los Angeles to study with seven-time world champion Michael Chaturantabut. He even represented the United States in the World Karate Association championships.

It was his martial-arts instructor who suggested that Lautner audition for a Burger King commercial. Now he’s one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood.

“It’s exciting,” Lautner says. “I know I could whine about the fame part, but the truth is that I’ve had the time of my life the last two years.”

His next film will be Stretch Armstrong, based on the classic toy. “The script is being written,” the actor says. “The cool thing is that a toy can do anything.”

The same is not true of the human body, and Lautner admits that it isn’t easy to look the way Jacob does.

“Trust me, this muscle is as hard to maintain as it was to put on,” he says. “If I can’t get to the gym or eat, I’ll lose it quickly. It takes 10 times the effort to put it back on again.”

It matters, because Lautner currently is in training for the final two films in the series, which will adapt Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s novel Breaking Dawn.

That means at least two more years of Twilight frenzy, and two more years for Lautner to duck tabloid photographers whenever he leaves the house.

“Sometimes it becomes aggravating with the paparazzi,” the actor admits with a shrug, “but I don’t let it affect me that much, or it would drive me insane. There are a million more pros than cons in my life.”