Exclusive: Lautner's insane 'Tracers' escape
This is definitely the quickest mall shopping trip ever. Taylor Lautner is sprinting through during his new parkour-heavy film, Tracers.
The action film, now open in theaters and on demand, features the former Twilight star as a bike messenger involved with a dangerous group of parkour thieves.
In this exclusive scene, Lautner shows off the skills needed to navigate a mall escape, a location that Lautner calls "the ultimate parkour playground."
Yes, that's Lautner jumping on and over tables at a full-speed sprint and then jumping down two flights of mall steps in two single bounds.
"It was intense. There were plenty of stunts I did which were extremely dangerous," says Lautner. "If I slipped the littlest bit, it would not have ended pretty. I'm thankful for the producers and the insurance company for allowing me to do as much as I did."
The goal of the film was to do as many parkour stunts as possible to keep the urban movie very real. The athletic Lautner trained for four months in parkour before heading to the New York set to film.
It was a natural fit for adrenalin-junkie Lautner.
"Doing this movie gave me an excuse to do things I probably shouldn't be doing in real life," says Lautner.
The star gives big props to the camera man whose job it was to keep up with him at a full sprint, while carrying the camera.
"What's more impressive than me doing it was him doing it, and shooting the whole time," says Lautner. "He is literally following every move while carrying an 80-pound camera. It was very impressive."
Lautner admits he also took a pass on riding the yellow caution sign down the escalator. He jumped onto the sign at the top. But Lautner left the perilous ride down to the stunt double.
"I rarely say 'no' to doing something. The producers brought that stunt up, but I was like 'Let's let Gabe (the stunt double) do it,' " says Lautner. "There were plenty of stunts I did which were very dangerous. But one thing I have never been good at is boarding, whether snow boarding or surfing. That was definitely out of my comfort zone."
Amazingly, Lautner made it through the whole film without serious injury, while two of his co-stars broke their ankles shooting parkour scenes.