📸 Source photo: ©Instagram @jacksonrathbone
📌 Source: ew.com
If you too have ever stumbled in front of someone you admire, don’t worry: even the stars experience that big moment of solitude. Jackson Rathbone, aka Jasper in Twilight, had a bitter experience with it… and it was at the Chicago Fan Expo 2025 that he decided to share this super embarrassing (but ultimately too cute 💕) anecdote.
🤯 The day he met Ron Howard… and totally bugged
During a panel on August 17, Jackson recalled an audition like no other. Before becoming our favorite vampire in the Twilight saga, he had been auditioned for The Dark Tower, the adaptation of Stephen King’s novel that Ron Howard was supposed to direct (before eventually handing the directing to Nikolaj Arcel in 2017).
When he found himself face to face with the Oscar-winning director, Rathbone completely lost his footing:
“This is probably the most embarrassing moment of my career. I literally cried in my car for 30 minutes after that.”
The actor explained that as a child, he suffered from a severe stutter, and even after years of working with speech therapists, that old demon returned at just the wrong moment.
😬 The question that threw him off
Everything started off well:
“He said to me ‘Hey Jackson, nice to meet you’. And I thought to myself: ‘Oh my god, Ron Howard knows my name, this is crazy!’,” Jackson recounts.
Then the director followed up with a simple question: ‘I heard you were in a band, tell me a bit about it.’
And that’s when it completely bugged out:
“I stuttered: ‘I… I… I… I am… I… I… in a… a band…’. In short, it was a descent into hell.”
He admits he left the interview convinced he had blown it all. The result? Half an hour crying in his car. 💔
❤️ But Ron Howard had the sweetest reaction
Fortunately, the filmmaker did not react negatively at all. “Ron Howard is the most adorable man in the world. He just laughed, he continued the conversation without making a big deal out of it. It was really kind,” the actor recounts with a smile.
And even though this experience plunged him into a “dark period,” Jackson explains that talking with other actors helped him put things into perspective:
“We’ve all experienced moments where we felt ridiculous. But I was told: ‘Do you think this is the first time Ron Howard has seen someone get tangled in an audition? No. You’ll get over it, move on.’”
🎬 And The Dark Tower in all this?
In the end, even if Jackson had shone during that meeting, it probably would not have changed anything. The The Dark Tower project has faced years of struggles: announced in 2007 with J.J. Abrams, picked up by Ron Howard in 2010, it finally came out in 2017 with Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor. The result: a film deemed disappointing by critics and a flop at the box office (only $113 million worldwide).
The good news? The Gunslinger should get a new adaptation, this time as a series by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House). Here’s hoping this version manages to capture the fans of Stephen King! 📚🎥
✨ Moral of the story: even stars mess up sometimes, and that’s okay. The important thing is to keep moving forward… and to be able to laugh about it years later!
Passionate about movies, TV shows, and pop culture, Eva Vibes loves sharing her favorite picks and discoveries with enthusiasm.
As a big admirer of Jackson Rathbone, she enjoys revisiting his iconic roles, keeping up with his musical and film projects, and chatting about everything that makes his world unique.