The actor admitted that he was 'super anxious' about leaving his house for a decade.
Taylor Lautner is opening up about a challenging part of fame. During a Thursday interview with the Today show, the 29-year-old actor revealed that he was scared to leave his house for 10 years following the success of the Twilight franchise.
Lautner was just 16 when he landed the role of Jacob Black in the films, which he starred in alongside Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. The breakout role meant instant fame for the then-teenager.
"I went so many years either not leaving my house, or if I did, hat, sunglasses, and just like, scared," Lautner said, after if was revealed that he didn't go to a grocery store, movie theater, or mall for a decade. "It built up something inside of me where, I didn't know it, but I was scared to go out. I'd get super anxious to go out. So I just didn't."
Lautner's hesitancy to leave home was due to the fact that "when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, waking up and trying to just go out for a walk or go on a date and I had 12 cars waiting outside my house to follow me wherever I'm going or show up to an airport or anywhere, and you have thousands of fans screaming."
The franchise's five movies were released between 2008 and 2012, during which time, Lautner admitted, all of the attention "got frustrating because you just wanted to live a normal life."
"Not many things in life can come and happen overnight. Fame can. It also can disappear overnight," he said, before discussing how he felt after the commotion around him died down a bit.
"When that's taken away from you at all, you start to question yourself and start to be like, 'Oh, do people not care about me anymore?'" Lautner recalled. "When it goes away a little bit, you notice it, and that's the dangerous part because that can really mess with your mind."
Lautner decided to step away from the spotlight a bit at that point, and found "freedom" by returning to everyday tasks.
"It was needed for me personally," he said of the time off. "I, Taylor, feel so much better today than I have in the last four to five years."
Though the actor, who's next set to star in Netflix's Home Team, had ups and downs at the height of his fame, he recently gushed to ET about the resurgence of Twilight's popularity among Gen Z.
"The past few years... it was just the TwiMoms stopping me in the street. It just kinda outgrew itself. I love the TwiMoms, but only recently has it resurged," he said. "We have these young teenagers starting to watch it," Lautner marveled. "It's crazy to see it come back around."
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