Xavier Samuel, an Aussie, earns his own throng of screaming fans in 'Eclipse'

Xavier Samuel, an Aussie, earns his own throng of screaming fans in 'Eclipse'



When Australian actor Xavier Samuel shipped off an audition tape to "Twilight" producers, insta-fame seemed oceans away.

"It's kind of strange, because you send them off into oblivion and you don't know if anyone watches them," says Samuel, 26.

Fast-forward to the "Eclipse" premiere, where thousands of fans are not only screaming but are screaming for him.

"It's kind of 360 degrees of hysteria," Samuel says just hours before the Los Angeles premiere of the third film installment of Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster series. "The sound (of Twilight's fans) does really knock you off your feet."

Samuel steals not just the first five minutes of the film but much of its finale. He plays newborn vampire Riley Biers, who, alongside vengeful vamp Victoria, leads a bloodthirsty army of young vampires with one goal: killing human Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and those who protect her.

Hailing from Adelaide, he now joins Hollywood's list of young Aussie men in the spotlight, including brothers Chris Hemsworth ("Star Trek") and Liam Hemsworth ("The Last Song") and Sam Worthington ("Avatar").

There was only one problem en route to the "Eclipse" set.

"I was going through the book going, 'Where's Riley?' " says Samuel, whose character gets a major upgrade in the screenplay version of "Eclipse." But director David Slade slipped him an early copy of Meyer's recent novella, "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner," in which Riley and Victoria's relationship is more deeply explained.

Joining the ranks of Robert Pattinson, Stewart and Taylor Lautner, "I ought to feel ostracized, but everyone was wonderfully down to earth," says Samuel, who found battling a CGI werewolf more challenging than making friends. "You're just working with a piece of fur on the end of a stick just kind of poking you," he says with a laugh.

The son of parents who teach history and English, the dry-humored Samuel (who's single) cut his teeth playing Hamlet at Flinders University Drama Centre and has appeared in movies on the film festival circuit, including "September" and "The Loved Ones."

He just returned from shooting historical thriller "Anonymous" in Berlin, which tackles whether Shakespeare was the author of his prose.

"I went from playing an evil vampire to an Elizabethan aristocrat, which is a great thing to do," he says.

And now? "I just want an experience that challenges me as an actor and pushes me to get better."