Taylor Lautner Recalls Off-Screen Twilight Rivalry With Robert Pattinson

At the height of its popularity, Twilight fans were very much divided into two camps: Team Edward and Team Jacob — there was no in between. Now, Jacob Black himself (aka Taylor Lautner) has revealed that his onscreen rivalry with the lead character of Edward Cullen (played by co-star Robert Pattinson) had an “impact” on their relationship off-screen, too.

Speaking on The Toast With Jackie & Claudia Oshry podcast, Lautner recalled that it was “very strange” having “thousands of screaming fans either take your side or the other guy’s side.” The actor continued: “Like, we’re a team. We’re both just trying to make the best movies… but it was a little bizarre, the competitiveness. There wasn’t a competitiveness between me and Rob, but having that constant reminder, I think it definitely had an impact.”

Meanwhile, Team Edward scored an important point against Team Jacob during the interview: as Lautner admitted that he finds his own character “a little annoying.” After watching several Twilight movies for the first time in a decade about a year ago, he realized his perspective on the teen werewolf has changed, as he confessed on The Toast podcast.

The hosts also asked Lautner about his feelings on his wife, also named Taylor Lautner (aka “girl Tay”), having been Team Edward when the films were being made, long before they had ever met. He explained that he’s “fine with it,” first because he has “converted her” and second because… well, he’s not as Team Jacob as he once was.

“If I’m being honest…” he started, before going back to explain that he was bored in a hotel room one day and ended up watching “New Moon, Eclipse, and maybe, like, the first half of the first Breaking Dawn back to back.” He hadn’t watched them in roughly 10 years, and revisiting them prompted a realization. “As I was watching it, I was like, ‘I kind of get it. Jacob’s a little annoying’ … I love Jacob and his heart, but he’s a little annoying,” he said.

Publicly sharing his new views made his heart beat really fast, he told the hosts, and he noted that he’d probably get “hate” for it. He made sure to let fans know he still loves his character. “I’ll always have Jacob’s back,” he said. At no point did he say he was Team Edward.

The other Taylor Lautner, on the other hand, has owned the fact that she was Team Edward back in the day. In Jun. 2022, several months before their November wedding, she jumped on a TikTok trend in which users were supposed to show their childhood crush and then the person they ended up with. Girl Tay’s hilariously went from images of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen to ones of her now-husband Taylor Lautner.

Girl Tay was also part of the Toast interview, and though she wasn’t won over by Jacob in his heyday, she’s definitely a fan of the man who played him now. “He’s just the most normal person,” she said of Lautner. “He’s the nicest human, like, he’s so normal; you can stick him in anywhere and he fits in great.” She even called him her “little golden retriever,” which is a far cry from the wolf that Jacob was.