With Twilight's twilight drawing near, Kellan Lutz can't help but feel a bit nostalgic for the good old days.
Us Weekly caught up with the Breaking Dawn star, 27, at Heineken's US Open Player Party in NYC Friday night, where he admitted his favorite memories from his time as part of the Twilight phenomenon came before the films were a big deal.
"I gotta say my favorite moments were during . . . the first movie, before any of this craze happened. We were just ourselves, no one really knew who we were yet," Lutz explained. "We haven't changed per se, but we were able to get away with a lot more."
"I remember Peter [Facinelli] and Jackson [Rathbone] and myself would go to different bars and different concerts," the actor continued of their formerly low-key nights out together. "We'd go do karaoke all the time."
Though he says he wouldn't trade his experience — and especially the traveling he's gotten to do — for anything, Lutz did confess the level of celebrity he and his castmates now enjoy is a "double-edged sword."
"I don't really like to comment on everyone else's process, but I think we've all done the best we could with this," he said "It's a blessing but it can be surreal sometimes. I don't know if we all knew what we were fully getting into on all fronts."
Indeed, the Twilight cast — and in particular its leads, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart — have seen their share of off-screen drama these days. Still, in the wake of Stewart's mid-July cheating scandal, the studio behind the franchise, Summit Entertainment, has assured fans that the show (in the form of intense promotional duties for all of the film's stars) will go on as planned.
"While it is studio policy not to comment on the personal lives of actors, Summit is moving full steam ahead and looking forward to this November's opening of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," a Summit spokesperson told EW.com. "We are confident that the film delivers amazing entertainment for our passionate fans and general audiences alike."
The final Twilight Saga film hits theaters November 16.
