JACKSON RATHBONE IS BLOODY CUTE

The Twilight actor plays a song for us on piano. We like him.

The adage that you can tell a lot about someone by their shoes seems true of Jackson Rathbone, who is wearing brown leather cowboy boots flecked with yellow paint.  He spent many of his formative years in Texas, and talking to him, it becomes clear that he would describe himself as an artist before he would just call himself an actor.

Rathbone started acting in high school when he attended Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and moved from set and lighting design to a spot in front of the curtain.  "When I started being onstage, I fell in love with it," he says.  Although he is now best known as Jasper Hale in Twilight, and is currently filming M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, what Rathbone seems most excited to talk about right now is his band, 100 Monkeys. 

His bandmates are old friends and actors as well, and he shares a house in Hollywood with two of them.  "We call it the Monkey House," he jokes.  "We all play all the instruments," he adds.  "We call it the Monkey Switcharoo."

When asked about working with his Twilight castmates, he praises their talent, then adds, "Kristen and Rob are both very musically inclined, so we would have jam sessions.  It was like the Cullen Family Band." 

Strangely enough, the hotel room where we're speaking is equipped with a grand piano.  Nearly everyone who's passed it has hammered out a botched chopsticks, and Rathbone, whose car is waiting outside, can't resist the pull either.  He sits down, and to much applause, plays an actual song.
--KATE WILLIAMS

Hear 100 Monkeys on MySpace
See Kristen Stewart on NYLON TV!



This story was published on April 22, 2009.