Landing your first acting role in a major motion picture, let alone a box office hit, is a rare occurrence that takes perhaps just the right alignment of skill, timing and a few lucky stars.
But that’s exactly how things panned out for 20-year-old Canadian actor Tyson Houseman, who caught a break and was cast as Quil Ateara in the teen vampire phenomenon known as The Twilight Saga.
Houseman says he kind of just fell into acting.
“To be completely honest, I was terrified of the idea of acting but whenever I was actually doing it, I was enjoying myself so much. I could get so comfortable being on stage,” says Houseman. “It was just the anticipation building up to it that completely scared the heck out of me. I think one day I realized I really enjoyed that adrenaline that I got from that fear.”
The Edmonton native plays one of the boys of the wolf pack and first appears in New Moon, the second of four parts in the series. He will reprise his role in the third — and highly anticipated — Eclipse, set for worldwide release at the end of the month.
He says his character has a much bigger role in Eclipse and “imprints” on a female in the film, a wolf pack ritual and rite of passage, something along the lines of “love at first sight” and claiming a future mate.
While Houseman enjoyed playing parts in school plays growing up, he never thought it would lead him on the high-profile path he has now found himself on.
Opportunity knocked soon after he made the move to Vancouver to pursue an acting career after graduating high school.
“About four months into living in Vancouver I found this open casting call on Craigslist and they were looking for people who had a Native American background who were between the ages of 15 and 25 and I was like, ‘Yeah I fit that description so why not go check it out.’”
Only actors of native descent were cast for members of the wolf pack and Houseman says he feels lucky to have fallen into a character that was similar enough to himself that he could easily relate to.
He did, however, endure some intense training and workout sessions with the rest of the pack to fit the buff and shirtless form in the movies.
“It was really intense stuff,” Houseman says.
