According to Taylor, there is a very specific sort of girl who’s going to sign up for what’s become known to Twilight fans as Team Jacob. “If she likes having a really close friendship with a guy,” he begins, “being able to tell him anything, and then having that friendship slowly transform into something more….” The seventeen-year-old stops himself and laughs. “I find myself using the word transform a lot lately,” he explains, “because that’s what Jacob does.”

It’s not exactly a spoiler to say that Taylor’s character in November’s New Moon is going through some intense changes. As everyone who’s seen the movie’s trailer or read the books knows, Jacob Black is now a werewolf. And the changes that Taylor himself underwent in order to keep the part—as he says, “hitting the gym, hiring a personal trainer, eating the right foods, and eating a lot of them”—were equally evident. When that first trailer premiered at the MTV Movie Awards, the live (and apparently largely female) audience responded to a two-second shot of Taylor, shirtless, by screaming like they were on a roller coaster. Not that he’s about to let all that adulation go to his head. “I think the fans would love anybody who played Jacob,” he says mildly, when the reception is mentioned. “I’m just lucky to be the one who got the chance.”

View the article here and click here for more cover shoot photos. For the full article be sure to pick up Teen Vogue’s October 2009 issue hitting newsstands September 8.