Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone Sinks Teeth Into His First True Horror Movie With ‘Warhunt’

Actor, producer and musician Jackson Rathbone is best-known for his breakout role as vampire Jasper Hale in The Twilight Saga film series. From 2008 to 2012, the actor co-starred in the internationally renowned vampire franchise, which has grossed over $3.3 billion in global box revenues, and propelled him to worldwide recognition.

To date, Rathbone, a descendant of noted British actor Basil Rathbone, has starred in more than 25 films, including 2010’s The Last Airbender, an adaptation of the critically acclaimed animated franchise. Most recently he starred in Netflix’s family friendly comedy Mixtape, and now embarks on his first true horror movie with Warhunt, alongside Mickey Rourke and Robert Knepper.

In the horror/supernatural thriller set during World War II, Rathbone plays Walsh, a U.S. Army specialist who is summoned by his superior (Rourke) to assist a squad led by Sgt. Brewer (Knepper), a fearless warrior, on a rescue mission to retrieve top secret material aboard a military cargo plane that has mysteriously crashed in Germany’s Black Forest. On the lookout for Nazis while behind enemy lines, the squad faces another dark foe—a coven of murderous witches, who use their magical alluring powers to draw in the soldiers one-by-one to a brutal death. As their ranks diminish, the remaining members of the outfit realize they must uncover the truth behind the supernatural force and destroy it before the Nazis find it and weaponized it.

Warhunt is directed by Mauro Borrelli (The Recall and Goodbye, Casanova), who also wrote the screenplay along with Reggie Keyohara III and Scott Svatos.

Married to dancer Sheila Hafsadi with whom he has three children, Rathbone has come a long way from the vampire heartthrob he played in The Twilight Saga. A versatile musician, he played with the funk band 100 Monkeys, with whom he recorded three albums and toured the U.S. and overseas. He now divides his time between Austin and Los Angeles, and simply enjoys being a working actor, producer and giving back to the community. He is an honorary board member for Little Kids Rock, a national nonprofit that works to restore and revitalize music education in disadvantaged public schools.

Rathbone spoke via Zoom about Saban Films’ Warhunt, which is now in theaters, and available on Digital and On Demand.

Angela Dawson: You shot Warhunt in Latvia. What was it like filming there?

Jackson Rathbone: Yeah, it’s on the Baltic Sea. We had a lot of Polish funding and Polish influences within the film. It was definitely cold. In fact, it was freezing there. We were filming in negative-degree weather. It would snow one day and the next day it would dry up. We definitely felt the presence of the supernatural within the film through just the weather. It was during the first wave of the pandemic rearing its ugly head. That was definitely the horror of the world impacting our set.

Dawson: There have been many movies set during World War II and many more about witches and the occult, but very few combine those genres.

Rathbone: Yeah, one of the exciting elements of the script, to me, was, “let’s take a well-known aspect of history—World War II—and let’s really dig into the horrors of war.”

Historically, we know that Hitler was obsessed with the occult. So, to find this correlation within this historical fiction and add the supernatural horror of it was intriguing. I love subverting genre as an actor and a filmmaker. To be able to get in there and do something like this, which it is from, I love a good escapist film and this one I think definitely falls into that line.

Dawson: You don’t have many scenes with Mickey Rourke but you do have a few with him at the beginning and towards the end of the film. What was it like working with this Hollywood legend?

Rathbone: Mickey Rourke is certainly a legend. He came to set right at the apex of the pandemic, and we had to shut down production. They had to fly me back to the States so they filmed Mickey’s scenes without me because I couldn’t get back into the country until later because of the issues of the lockdown (in Europe). Kudos to our producers and our editor because we appear to be on set at the same time but we filmed with each other’s stand-ins. That was disappointing to me because, obviously, I wanted to work with Mickey Rourke because he is a legend whom I admire so much.

However, I did get to work with Robert Knepper, who is a force of nature as an actor and incredible performer. I learned a lot from him and had a lot of fun with making the movie.

Dawson: Your character, Walsh, is one who has secrets from the other members of this rescue mission. He’s almost like a spy in that he keeps these secrets from the squad through most of their journey.

Rathbone: My favorite aspect of the character is the mystique and the secrecy. I love playing characters that have arcs and we learn about them as we progress, as we do in real life. I was talking to a good friend of mine and he said to me that it really takes three months to really get to know somebody. With (movie) characters, sometimes you get to know them right away and sometimes you get to learn more about them as the film progresses. To play a character like Walsh, who we really don’t understand until the end, that’s definitely something that attracted me to the character.

Dawson: You’re quite the man of the world: You were born in Singapore, then lived in Norway, Michigan and Texas, and you toured all over with your band, so do you feel you have a knack of being able to fit in to whatever environment you’re in and adaptable to most situations because of that?

Rathbone: Honestly, I do attribute a lot of my personality and artistic endeavors to being world-traveled. I try to make sure that my kids see the world as well. Nothing can be as important as understanding that the human race is one, and that we are all united by our loves and our fears. That can be something as simple as our love for our family and our fear for their safety. That was the beauty of the pandemic, at first. When it first began, we were all worried for each other and we all wanted to come out of this well, and then it started getting a bit … darker. But I think it’s important to remember that people truly have the things that they love and everyone has the things they’re afraid of in this world, and we, hopefully, have to cut each other some slack.

It’s like what I tell my nine-year-old constantly—it’s the Golden Rule—treat other people the way you want to be treated. I think that’s a great way to go through life as a child and as an adult.

Dawson: You’re a producer, an actor and a musician. What do you glean from each of those passions or is the combination of those activities that gets you going?

Rathbone: I try to wear many hats; it’s hard to say if I have a favorite. Acting is my pleasure and it’s my vocation. I get to make-believe for a living, and that still blows my mind. When I meet other parents at my kids’ school, there’s always the funny conversation that “I make-believe for a living” while the other kids’ parents might be in more (traditional jobs). For me, I just love art, whether its music or filmmaking or being an actor in a film. This movie, I was solely an actor and I just get to be that—I get to live in the character, hopefully get to make as many choices as I can that make him interesting, not only interesting for me as a performer but for the audience

Dawson: Your bio says you live in L.A. or Austin, Texas, “depending on the weather.”

Rathbone: That’s fairly accurate. Plus, Atlanta is one of the places I also go to—depending on the weather. I’m in Atlanta right now where it’s pretty cold. I got to take my kids out in the snow this weekend, which they were ecstatic about. When the snow was falling, you could see the magic in their eyes. They still haven’t been skiing yet. But as a dad, I get to relive the kind of mundane magic of the world through my children.

Dawson: What’s ahead for you?

Rathbone: I just finished a wonderful movie called Books & Drinks. If Warhunt is my first true horror film, then Books & Drinks is my first true romantic comedy. I got to do something I’ve never done before. We filmed in the Dominican Republic. It’s a bilingual film so I had to go back into my Spanish, which was a lot of fun for me. It’s a multicultural love story (co-starring Nashla Bogaert) and I had such a great time doing it. Hopefully that film will be out in the next year or two.

I also had a film come out on Netflix called Mixtape, which was a beautiful family film where I got to play an aging rock star. I’ve reached the point in my career where I’m playing “aging” characters, which is great.