How long have you been a runner and how did you get started?
Well, when I was younger there was a sort of stigma attached to my stamina. My dad took me swimming one day and I just was no good at it, so my dad said, “Your stamina’s bad.” I started running when I was 15. I was at secondary school and there was this big cross-country event that all the boys had to run in. The race went by the netball courts [similar to basketball] where the girls were playing. I knew they were watching, so I wanted to be with the fast runners when we went by the courts. And I was. I think I just willed myself to be a good runner and it worked.
I also did well on the bleep test, which is where you sprint back and forth between two lines that are about 20 meters apart. I got a 15, which is a really good score and translated into being superfit. But after secondary school, I stopped running until I got to university. There I played a lot of rugby and did a lot of training for that that involved running. I didn’t really start running competitively until after I moved to Vancouver.
What happened in Vancouver that led you to pick up running?
I moved there when I was 27 or 28. I was living near one of the best ski resorts in the world, Whistler, so I took up snowboarding. I was just having fun while I sort of figured out what was going on with my life, much to the panic of my parents. They eventually just let go at some point. You know, I was the first-born and you’re naturally supposed to mess up the first-born. So I was having fun at Whistler, driving a taxi to pay the bills, but then I got a bit depressed. My girlfriend dumped me and all my friends in London were making money. I would spend these quiet nights in my taxi driving laps through the McDonald’s drive-through. Then one day I realized why my girlfriend dumped me. I was overweight and not doing anything with my life. So I literally just stepped out of my apartment building the next morning and started running big laps around the harbor. I started doing that every morning. I’d get up at 6 a.m. and run for 25 minutes. That coupled with a new job I had waiting tables, helped me drop 30 pounds. Around the same time, I had an epiphany. I decided all my problems lay in England. I had this anxiety that my family and my girlfriend and friends back home were all going in the same direction and it was a direction I wasn’t sure of. Then I realized if I didn’t go back to England, my problems would cease to be problems. Anyway, I took up running because I needed to get in shape and have a ritual in the morning and I just got obsessed with it. Getting up at 6 a.m. to run is something that keeps you on the straight and narrow. When friends of mine who are struggling ask for help, the number one thing I say to them is, “Get up at 6 a.m. every morning and run for 25 minutes.”
What did you like about running in Vancouver?
I’d run along the sea wall with the snow-crusted mountains in the distance. It was just epic, just a beautiful environment to run in.
You were a rugby player for a long time, how did that fit in with your running?
I played rugby from age 7 to 13 and then later at university. I like to mix up a bit, to get into fights. I loved rugby and could never imagine not playing rugby but…. the moment I gave up rugby happened when I was back home from a brief spell in Vancouver. I had lost about 30 pounds. My core had gone. My bum had gone. Everything was about half its original size. Anyway, I’m out on the field, appraising my position for this Boxing Day rugby matchup that my family has every year. There’s a big crowd and I’m superfit, buzzing around like a little fly. There’s this guy on the other side who was big, really big, but it was not something I was unaccustomed to dealing with, so I wasn’t worried. Anyway, he had the ball and he was holding it with both hands against his chest. I hit him right in the hands. The ball was supposed to release like a springboard. I hit him hard, but he didn’t move and I literally did a backstroke in the air. I think I had enough air time to analyze what happened and I quit rugby before I hit the round.
What’s your running routine now that you’re living in Los Angeles?
The problem with running is that I get so skinny and I become almost not myself. So I’m also doing CrossFit. I do that early in the morning and I’m pretty set for the rest of the day. I supplement those workouts with hill sprints. Los Angeles is a great place to run hills. The other night I ran for an hour and a half in the hills underneath the Hollywood sign during a full moon. It was unbelievable. Everything that was white was reflected off the moon.
What are some of your favorite places to run in Los Angeles?
I like to run on the beach. It’s a different exercise as well when you’re in sand, a different kind of training. I run on Venice beach and Santa Monica and Zuma, which is a great one for triathletes. Zuma is a big long beach up in Malibu, and it feels like a holiday when you go out there. It’s amazing. The Hollywood Hills are also a great place to run. The air is fresher. Down in the valley smog hangs over the houses. Up in the hills, you get the breeze from the sea. Up around the Hollywood sign, there are loads of little trails and tracks and rattlesnakes.
Does anyone ever recognize you when you’re out running?
I don’t get recognized, maybe because I’m never the same person twice. I quite hope that continues. I have a very normal life. I take buses. I take Greyhound. I get messy in pubs. I never, ever worry about anybody recognizing me.
Tell me about Joceyln Clarke, the woman fighting a rare form of lung cancer, who inspired you to run an ultramarathon.
We only met three or four times, mostly on the set of Twilight. But she was just one of those people. Her personality was quite lovely and we got on like a house on fire. We were just easy, easy friends, and then I started seeing her Facebook updates and they became like a journal. They were quite graphic in terms of what she was going through. I think I spoke to her six months later. I picked up the phone and called her. Having a conversation with someone who is terminally ill with cancer really puts things in perspective to say the least. I realized how raw death is when people are faced with it. Life becomes much more…sensory. When I put the phone down, I told myself, “I’ll do what I have to do to keep her alive,” so I decided to run the BMO Vancouver half and full marathons back to back to raise money for her treatment. Unfortunately halfway through my fund-raising efforts, she died. She died on Valentine’s Day. But I went ahead with my fund-raising and the race and eventually raised $20,000 for cancer research.
Why did you decide to run both races?
I just thought everyone runs a marathon. It didn’t sound that great in my head. I knew I could run a marathon. I wanted to push myself further than I knew I could do. I was very scared during it. But every time during the race that I started to struggle, I just thought about the challenges Jocelyn faced in trying to beat cancer and my pain seemed insignificant in comparison to that, and that pulled me around the course.
You had tears in your eyes at the finish line. What were you thinking about?
It was a whole bunch of stuff, really. My brother and sister were visiting from England, and that was quite a wonderful thing. Also, it was a just a glorious day in Vancouver. I was thinking about Jocelyn during a lot of the race, but at that point, I was thinking about what I’d just done. I was quite worried about running the race because I had a slight injury at the time. But I sprinted the last part, and I think seeing the finishing line after six hours made me feel emotional. It was one of the best moments of my life.
You’ve given quite a bit of thought to your running stride, can you describe it? I’ve tried out a bunch of different strides, including Chi Running, but the one I think I’ve settled on involves working on my hip movement and keeping the stride in my glutes. I really try to work the hip flexor muscles to elongate my stride and keep it very flowing and low…if that makes any sense at all.
Any running gear that you’re particularly attached to?
Yes, I have these awesome Team Great Britain short shorts that I love to run in. They are just the most amazing pair of shorts. They’re so comfortable and they’re elastic and just so short shorts. You can’t buy them in America. I think over here men get a little uneasy about short shorts. But I wear them everywhere. I pretend I’m Mo Farah and just go.
Do you listen to any music when you run?
When I first started running, I listened to trance music, specifically Tiesto, who is just otherworldly. But now I don’t listen to music. I guess I have all the inspiration I need in life. Instead of being inspired by these other worlds that trance music creates in my head, I’m inspired by the ideas that pop up in my head when I’m running. I have so many ideas they’re coming out of my ears and my short shorts.
What is that you like about running?
If you believe what the book Born to Run says, running is our number one primal weapon. But none of us does it anymore. If Armageddon was around the corner, most people couldn’t run 10 yards. I just don’t understand why most people don’t do it. If we all got up at 6 a.m. and ran for 25 minutes every day, it would solve a lot of our problems. I really believe that. If we all started running, we’d have world peace. That’s an idea that I really want to push forward. Someday, I’d like to influence kids and even older people to take up running. I can’t really emphasize enough what running has done for me. It made me become my own person. It gave me a competitive edge. I know there is no one out there that can touch me, a runner in the acting world.
You recently won a 10-K that you decided to enter on the spur of the moment in Vancouver (the BC Cancer Foundation’s Underwear Affair) where runners race in their underwear. Tell me about that.
Yeah, so, I was pretty much depressed in Los Angeles. It was summertime and things weren’t happening. I popped up to Vancouver, to Whistler, to get my head straight, and I was walking on the sea wall one day and I happened to stumble across this race that I’d run three years ago. I had my luggage on me. It was 20 minutes before the race started. I took my clothes off and checked my bags and ran. It’s funny. I hadn’t had the healthiest week, the week before. It was very self-indulgent. I drank a lot of beer, so the photos from that day aren’t very flattering. But I had a good time: 37:40 [he won].
What was it like to run in your underwear?
Pretty liberating, really.
I read in the newspaper that you were going to auction them off to raise additional money for the race’s cause.
I was supposed to, but I lost them. I don’t know where they are.
Oh darn, I was going to ask next if you auctioned them off washed or unwashed.
I definitely washed them! I don’t like the thought of Twilight fans getting a hold of my unwashed underwear and inhaling my um…race juices….They might make one of those, what’s the word…effigy? Voodoo dolls! Yeah, they might stick it full of pins. No, that’s not a good idea.
How has running helped your acting career?
There’s two ways of thinking about it. Aesthetically, it’s my staple exercise. Then there’s the meditative part. It allows me to go somewhere and take time to myself and be relaxed. I have many acting epiphanies when I’m running, creative ideas. But being a runner can actually be a bit detrimental to acting because you’re so fit, you don’t have to breathe that much. It makes me very calm and Zen and that’s not good. It’s not interesting. With acting it’s actually better sometimes to be out of breath. Sometimes, I have to do a bunch of push-ups before I shoot a scene.
Do you have a bucket list of races that you’d like to do in the future?
Yeah, I would like to do the Death Valley ultra, which I think is 135 miles. That sounds pretty gnarly. I think I’d like to do something in the mountains, too. I do really enjoy trail running. It’s an adaptive and distinct style of running that uses so many different gears. I think I’ll try an Ironman again. The Ironman half was a nice day out. I’ll try any race with a bit of novelty and craziness to it. I think I’m quite in touch with my animal self. It’s nice to feel like a warrior. Deep down we’re really just animals. I like to get that warrior out now and again and give it a dust off. And yeah, just getting really messy is definitely more appealing to me than the Zen of long-distance running.
Your Twilight character, Demetri, is supposed to be pretty fit, isn’t he? He’s a “tracker” so I imagine he’s chasing after people. How does your being a runner fit into that role?
I think the fact that I am a runner only added to the confidence I felt in being selected for the role. Although I don't get to show off these skills in the movies, the back story I created for my character involved a lot of running around fast, being incapable of capture, having lots of endurance...coupled with strength, agility, and an ability to track people by the tenor of their thoughts. I regard Demetri as the most physically capable and most dangerous predator in the underworld.
Does anyone else in the Twilight cast run?
No, I was that crazy guy who ran. I remember going to an Italian film festival, to support [Twilight] New Moon, part of which was shot in Tuscany, and I found out that the Nike Human Race was going on. I go in this Nike store and I said to the guy, “Hey, man, I heard you guys were having a Nike Human Race,” and he said, “No, no.” So I said, “Well, I’m out here supporting the Twilight thing. Is there anyone I can call who can squeeze me in?” And he was like, “No, I don’t think so.” He didn’t know anything about the race, but there was this 20-foot poster in the front window of the shop, so I don’t know if he was just being a pain in the ass or what. Finally, I called this other woman, who was marketing the race, and I said, “I’m out here supporting Twilight and I’d love to run.” She couldn’t believe her luck. The next thing you know, a limousine pulls up to drive myself and a friend about 100 yards. We walked into the store with the photographer snapping pictures of us. It was a real celebrity moment. The same guy who blew me off a couple of days before was like, “So, so sorry. I didn’t know.”
