I love mythology, grew up loving it. I'm a middle kid, big family, that's the thing you did in the farm country. I lived in Iowa, I loved mythology. I don't know, we're like that.

I always tried to make it a goal to relieve some of the stress my mother went through. I applied myself to school very diligently. I wanted to go out of state so I wouldn't have to depend on my mother.

I could definitely take someone out with my bare hands.

You could do a hundred projects and still not have the fans that are there for Twilight.

We all have our tastes and our type... [But] for me to say 'You're beautiful', I can only say that to my girlfriend. The word 'beautiful' has such a different caliber than any other word out there, like sexy, hot, cute.

"You're a sex icon." Why? Because I played a vampire in a movie? It's all very unearned. If I had the best freaking abs in the world or if I looked like Brad Pitt does in Fight Club, then cool, but I'm not starving myself.

I was actually away in Africa doing 'Generation Kill' while everyone was auditioning for Twilight. They all had, like, five different auditions: I was so lucky that I came back from Africa just in time and the actor who was playing Emmett fell through, lucky for me!