QuileuteWolfPack.com Exclusive with Alex Meraz

During Alex Meraz’s weekend in Brisbane, Australia, I was privileged enough to spend some time with him and his wife. I had the chance to get the low-down on Alex’s inspirations and his experiences preparing for his role in Savage Innocent and New Moon, his time in Australia, and on the set of New World- all exclusive to QuileuteWolfPack.com.

Alex Meraz is well known for his multitude of talents, which makes him an inspiration for thousands of people. But who inspires Alex? Alex tells that he admires people who go through a physical change for their work. He comments that actors like Tom Hardy are the kind of people he aspires to work with. Tom Hardy, lead actor of the British-made Bronson, went under a major physical transformation which included gaining 42 pounds (or 20 kilos) of muscle. Alex comments that he would love to work with Alejandro González Iñárritu, who is best known as the director for Babel, but Alex recalls his other great, but generally unknown, movies such as 21 grams and 11’09’01- September 11.

However, New Moon is now a universally recognized film, and Alex has taken a part of that home with him…literally. Alex made sure he secured himself a souvenir (or several) while on the set of New Moon. Alex laughs as he explains that when he was onset he worried that the production team would mix up his ‘picture-underwear’ with everyone else’s (picture-underwear is the underwear they have to wear while filming). Alex got so anxious over it that he took the underwear home each day instead of returning them to the production team. When he came back the next day he denied any knowledge of the picture-underwear’s whereabouts. He would watch them open a fresh packet of picture-underwear for him each day; just to make sure it wasn’t anyone else’s underwear. He laughs as he tells that he now has a drawer full of official New Moon picture-underwear at home.

The way he got to New Moon, Alex says, is unconventional. He followed no Actor 101 guidelines that Hollywood stars live by- he lived in Arizona (not LA), he auditioned by video (not in person) and he got the agent, manager and publicist all after he got the big gig of New Moon. Alex tells that he didn’t actually audition to be Paul at all. He auditioned for Sam, while Chaske auditioned for Jared, Bronson for Embry, and Kiowa for Paul. It wasn’t until Chris Weitz had a visionary dream in the middle of the night that he pieced together the actors with the different characters. It becomes obvious why Alex is such a big believer in destiny. Alex describes it as a “backward process”. Nevertheless, Alex now anticipates filming for Breaking Dawn, which he agrees should be split into 2 movies. Alex is only now trying to bulk up again after plans to film Savage Innocent this season fell through. Savage Innocent follows the sad story of a child who suffers a hard childhood, and is found by a family. The director, Larry Clark, is well known for other shocking stories, such as 1995’s film Kids. Alex comments that his character is suppose to be a frail, lean man who has spent a lot of time in a basement. To perfect this role, Alex explains that he had to lose 30 pounds which meant he had to drop the muscle he gained for New Moon and Eclipse.

Alex tweeted that he had to grow his beard and nails out, as well as going on major weight loss diets. Now that production for Savage Innocent is at a stand still Alex has chosen to regain all his lost weight and muscle for the much anticipated finale to the Twilight Saga.

On the topic of much anticipated: Alex has been twitter-happy about coming to Australia. He tweeted a friendly three times about coming to Australia and a further three times while he was here. Although he likes humid weather (strange man) he packed for a chilly Australian autumn. I’m sure that Alex was happily surprised when he found that Brisbane had pleasant weather. Alex probably wasn’t as equally joyful when he realized that all Australian cities weren’t based on a beautiful white beach, like he anticipated. Alex did learn two things about Australia on his weekend here. The first thing was the way Aussie’s say “yeah”. He tried to adopt it over the weekend by saying “yeeeeeeah” in all his Q&A sessions. The other thing Alex learned was that Australians really do eat kangaroo, which he says he wanted to try.

To get heretoday, Alex remembers back to his first film that initially pushed him into the spotlight- not New Moon, but New World. On the threshold of his 20’s, Alex comments about how quiet and meek he was on set with world class actors such as Collin Farrell and Christian Bale. After the camera stopped rolling, he would quietly just stand there until further directions. This is different from the free spirited, boisterous and energetic Alex we know today, huh? It’s because of men like Collin Farrell and Christian Bale, Alex says, who tried to make him feel at ease, from throwing his arm freely around Alex, to simply buying Alex a drink. However, there was two pieces of advice that Christian and Collin gave Alex, both of which Alex has obviously kept in mind to maintain level-headedness in Hollywood. The first was “Not to take yourself too seriously,” which Alex does apply with his hilarious and embarrassing shenanigans on twitter, including dressing up as a woman, posing in his Spongebob PJs, getting a speeding ticket, a dog sniffing his crotch, sleeping on the job, being rejected on Valentine’s Day, locking himself in an optometrist’s bathroom, and being mistaken for a yard worker.

Then, suddenly, Alex comes out with deep thoughts like “you arer what your deep driving desires is, as your desire is your will, as your will is your deed, as your deed is your destiny,” and “you are not a human being having a spiritual experience, you are a spiritual being having a human experience,” which brings me to the last piece of advice that Christian and Collin left Alex, and that Alex now leaves us with:

“Be a student of life”