Before

After

What a difference a year makes

With less than 12 hours to go before “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” hit theaters, we need to take a moment and reflect on Taylor Lautner: the actor who carries “New Moon;” the real Jacob Black; the one who almost wasn’t invited back. Can you imagine the heartbreak?

Lautner (left) and Copon

After last year’s massive “Twilight” opening weekend, word got out that 16-year-old Lautner would be unable to return as the transformed, muscular Jacob Black for the sequel. Names like Michael Copon were thrown into the hat while Twihards protested, taking their grievances to the world wide web and social media sites where they signed petitions and threatened to boycott the franchise if Lautner wasn’t reinstated. In January 2009 Melissa Rosenberg, screenwriter of both Twilight films, told EW : “Jacob is a totally different character in New Moon. He’s a foot taller and huge – and he’s supposed to look 25. It’s really a question of whether or not the same actor can play the role.”

It wasn’t until a newly buff Lautner appeared a few months later that it seemed like he could put on enough muscles to get the gig back. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now hours before the biggest movie opening of his career, Taylor Lautner is finally getting a chance to reflect on the events of the last 12 months. “Honestly, if I would have let myself get to that darkest moment, it wouldn’t have been good,” Taylor said to MTV of the days when it looked like the franchise might be moving on without him. “So I tried to focus on what I could control the whole time and not let whatever was going on outside get to me. And that’s what I did.

“During that whole time, there was no director attached, so nobody could make that kind of decision or announcement without the director,” he remembered of last winter, when he seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth and apparently spent all his time pumping iron. “As soon as Chris Weitz became attached, I had all my work done that I had been doing over the past nine, 10 months; it was all good to go.

“It’s not like I went in there trying to pitch myself,” Lautner said of the now-famous meeting with the “New Moon” director, when he convinced Weitz that he could pull off a bigger, stronger Jacob Black. “It really got blown into something in the media, but that’s what I try to stay away from. Chris was always extremely supportive, and I was glad to have him behind me.”

Once he had landed his meatiest starring role yet, all that was left was for Lautner to stand before the cameras and live out his dream. “My main goal going into this film was to bring alive both sides of Jacob; I wanted to capture and continue what I started in ‘Twilight,’ ” he explained of the tender boy within and the fierce beast unleashed. “Jacob is best friends with Bella, and then as soon as I transform, I just completely snap and become a different person. So I really hope that came across. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see and hear from the fans when it comes out.”