Jasper's Back Story

Twilight fans can look forward to seeing glimpses of Jasper Cullen's past when he tells his back story to Bella in the third installment of the Twilight saga Eclipse (coming out June 2010). Jasper was a young Civil War officer before he met up with vixen vampire Maria during the Southern Vampire Wars. Read this interview that Jackson Rathbone gave to MTV:

MTV: So we’re going to get to Jasper’s Civil War backstory?

Rathbone: Yes, I get to shoot some Civil War stuff, and I’m also going to shoot a lot of fighting scenes. Which is great, because I just came off [M. Night Shyamalan's] “The Last Airbender,” and I’ve been doing fighting for the last six months. So I’m ready to keep it on.

MTV: Are there training scenes in “Eclipse” along these lines?

Rathbone: It’s interesting; there’s a lot of cool scenes where Jasper trains the Cullen family on how to fight the newborns. He gets to train Emmett — and Emmett is a born fighter — so he’s telling Emmett all these techniques, and Emmett thinks he could just best Jasper [during their sparring]. Jasper ends up getting the best of him, because it’s a war mentality, not just a street brawl. It’s about thinking ahead; it’s a chess game.

MTV: Cool. Will we see the scene where Jasper gets bitten?

Rathbone: Oh yeah, we have to see that. It’s going to be great. I’ve been studying up a lot on the Civil War and that era. It really was a crazy time. It was all-out war on our own turf and between countrymen. That’s terrible. It’s an interesting time to see when Jasper was actually human and what his human form was and, when he gets turned, how intense and how dark he is. Then [we'll see] his realization of what he’s become, him finding Alice and being redeemed by love.

MTV: And is that the first time we’ll see your powers?

Rathbone: Actually, in “New Moon,” we get a little glimpse. Inside the school.