Sometimes meeting a celebrity can be a heartwarming moment — other times, it leads to tears in the car. Jackson Rathbone, best known for his role as Jasper Cullen in Twilight, recounted a humiliating early-career experience during an 17 August panel at Fan Expo in Chicago. He described his first encounter with two-time Oscar winner Ron Howard, which left him feeling embarrassed and nervous. “This is the most embarrassing moment of my career for sure. I literally cried in my car for 30 minutes after this,” Rathbone admitted, explaining that a childhood stutter returned during the meeting.
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Rathbone was auditioning for The Dark Tower, the long-gestating Stephen King adaptation that Howard was at one point attached to direct. “I was being considered for Ron Howard’s film and I was very nervous. Dude, my stutter came back harder than it’s ever happened to me before,” he said. Rathbone recalled Howard as warm and kind, asking about Rathbone’s band, while the actor struggled to respond coherently due to his nerves. “That’s how I started the meeting and it went downhill from there. I go out to my car and I know it didn’t go well because I was making a fool of myself, but Ron Howard is the sweetest man ever,” he added.
The incident left Rathbone in a “dark place” initially, but hearing similar stories from other actors helped him feel better. “We’ve all had experiences in our lives where we just maybe put our foot in our mouth, and we feel silly. Somebody told me, ‘You think that’s the first time that’s happened to Ron Howard?’ And I was like, ‘No, probably not,’” he said. Rathbone took comfort in the reminder that mistakes and awkward moments are part of life in the industry.
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Ultimately, the production of The Dark Tower was so troubled that even a perfect meeting with Howard would not have guaranteed him a role. The film took a decade to reach the screen, with several directors and stars considered along the way, including Russell Crowe, Aaron Paul and Liam Neeson. Howard eventually stepped back from directing, with the final film starring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey and Tom Taylor. Despite the challenges, the property will see another adaptation, with The Haunting of Hill House director Mike Flanagan developing a series.
