Cam Gigandet, who will - no matter what he does acting-wise - always be known to millions of Twilight fans as James, the evil vampire who wanted to kill Bella, dons guyliner and shows off his ripped abs in the Screen Gems musical, Burlesque. Gigandet plays a bartender at the Burlesque Lounge who befriends a small-town girl (played by Christina Aguilera making her feature film debut), helps her out with a job and a place to stay, and then finds himself falling for the pretty young woman with the gigantic singing voice.
Burlesque writer/director Steve Antin says he was blown away by Gigandet's preparation for the role.

"This very handsome, young guy with an incredible body swaggers into the room and you expect somebody really different than the person that you get to know," said Antin. "He’s a quiet, introverted, very thoughtful guy. He has a process that’s really interesting. He really cares about his craft and cares about what he’s doing, and he comes prepared.”

During roundtable interviews in Los Angeles for the musical, Gigandet explained his attraction to the role, life on the set, and how he feels about going shirtless for most of the film.

On showing some skin and using a strategically placed box of cookies to hide his private parts:

Cam Gigandet: "I’m pretty sure it didn’t say he’s holding a box of Famous Amos cookies, but we had rehearsed it and at that point, we were trying to find something that was unique and different and funny and entertaining. I’m not even sure who came up with the idea of using a box of cookies."

"But, you know, it was fun and it was funny. I remember we were standing in my apartment in the kitchen looking at all of the food products, trying to find something that would have enough coverage and also be entertaining at the same time.

We were looking at a box of cereal, maybe some bread. 'That’s a banana, that’s too risky,' go through the whole thing of food. It was an odd way to look at things. But, I’m okay with shirtless stuff."

?On wearing mascara and guyliner:

Cam Gigandet: "Do you want me to tell a lie? I was okay with it, you know, I was for a couple different reasons. It was fun to be something else and do something else and you know, the mascara, as soon as you put that on and when you look in the mirror, you’re kind of…I don’t know, it was easier to get into my character, especially when I’d walk onto this Burlesque lounge. I just felt like someone else. I don’t usually wear mascara or eyeliner or whatever it is, so it was definitely something new. Then, it made my eyes pop. He’s peacocking, right? And people will notice. They will definitely take notice and they will definitely remember maybe not for the reasons that he’s actually shooting for, but in the end it works."

On working with Christina Aguilera and Cher:

Cam Gigandet: "Well, working with Cher was…well, I was so nervous to meet her because it’s Cher, obviously. But she, within a minute of talking with her, you realize that you have no reason to be nervous and you have no reason to have anxiety because she’s just so cool and so easy to talk to and be around. You just kind of lose track that it’s actually Cher, the icon Cher, singular name Cher that you’re talking to."

"So, you know, whenever I’d remind myself of that it was just…I would always have such a surreal moment. Then, watching her work and I don’t know, I’ve always felt that people, the more experience they get, at least, the less risks they end up taking. You know, they tend to play it on the safer side of things, especially when they’re so high profile. I don’t know why, but they do. So to be able to watch her work and see that that doesn’t concern her. She has as much freedom as someone who has no idea what they’re doing. Take after take, she would just take risks and play around. 'Let’s try this. I don’t know, we could do that, but let’s go here. Let’s try this.' I don’t know how she does it."

"Working with Christina, someone who’s never worked as an actress, it was such a memorable experience. To be able to watch someone figuring things out for the very first time, and I can remember when I was there. It wasn’t something like Burlesque, it was a soap opera. So, my mistakes, no one had ever seen. To watch her work and figure things out so quickly, she just had such an amazing understanding of how to entertain and how to perform, obviously, because of who she is. She just translated that into the acting world, but not in a way where she was, 'Oh, I’m Christina Aguilera.' There was none of that. She was just so open to absorb anything, try anything new, I was fascinated every single day because you’d see the light bulb go off, even in the middle of the scene. You’d see things just click and she would just be changed. It was fascinating to watch, you know?"

Even though Cam Gigandet and Stanley Tucci were in Easy A, they never met before Burlesque:

Cam Gigandet: "On Easy A, I was in the middle of shooting The Roommate and they shot the movie up in Ojai, California, and so I would drive up there. I think I only worked like five or six days. I would drive up there for that one day, I’d work, a lot of my scene were with Emma Stone and who else were they with? Amanda Bynes. I didn’t even meet…I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I did not meet - names are so difficult to remember - no, from Friends, Phoebe, Lisa Kudrow. I didn’t meet her and I had an affair with her [in the film]."

"So it was all such a whirlwind and I’m in the middle of shooting The Roommate and so everything was just such a cluster-something. It went by really fast. That was my first time where I tried to be funny, and being funny is one of the hardest things in the world. I mean, it really truly is, being that I don’t really know what would be funny, especially with me doing anything. So, I was like, 'All right, just do something that you would never do,' because I’m typically not funny. So, I tried to go the opposite of who I actually am. I don’t even know if it ended up funny."

On comparisons between the original script and the finished film:

Cam Gigandet: "That’s a very good question. You know, the one difficult thing for me that I had reading the script was visualizing how it would end up, in terms of the music that was involved, because I’m not very familiar with musicals. Anything musical, it’s over my head and so how they were going to actually do that was a tough thing to comprehend. All I tried to do is focus on the simple story as if there were no music montage things going on. From that aspect, it was quite similar. I mean, the story is all there. Yeah, there may be changes here and there in terms of dialogue, but no one has ever been married to the dialogue."

"It’s all to tell a better story and it was a collaborative art form in terms of whether Christina thought this piece of dialogue would help with this emotional arc. It was all a work in progress, which was great. It was great that Steve Antin had enough trust and faith in his actors and everyone around him that we could actually do that because some people are just, 'This is what it is, and this is what it has to be. I don’t want to hear another word about it.''

On working with first-time feature film writer/director Steve Antin:

Cam Gigandet: "You know, when I had first met Steven, he had such a clear vision of what he wanted and even in his office, especially visually, in his office, he had photos of Burlesque around the entire office. When you see someone who cares and is passionate enough and they are prepared enough, you’re going to trust them. I have no reason to not trust or have faith in Steven from the get go. I can put my faith in pretty quickly. The fact that they had actually brought an acting coach onto set was…and it was my acting coach. So, I was so happy, you know? A lot of directors, a lot of people have certain issues with that, but it’s another set of eyes with an amazing gift to tell a story. Why not have as much help as we possibly could, and the movie wouldn’t have been the same without her."

On signing up for Burlesque:

Cam Gigandet: "While I was shooting Priest, which is also done by Screen Gems, I have this cowboy, leather coat and whole wardrobe on and Clint Culpepper, the head of the studio came to me and said, 'All right, come with me. I want you to listen to this TV that Christina had laid down the track thing.' She had made a song. That was right before they started shooting. So I go to his car, we’re blaring this Christina Aguilera song. I think at that time it was 'Bound to You.' It’s just her voice. I instantly knew as I’m sitting all dirty and gross in leather cowboy boots and just the whole get up, I knew something, whatever it was, that was related to that and that voice and where I was at that time, I knew it would be just the perfect 180 in trying to do something new."

On onscreen chemistry with Christina Aguilera:

Cam Gigandet: "People kept telling us, even while we were shooting, they’d be watching the dailies and they’d say, 'Oh, you have such great chemistry.' Again, it’s hard to believe what people say. If they were to say, 'You guys have terrible chemistry,' I’d be like, 'I know,' right?"

The best part of working on Burlesque:

Cam Gigandet: "Obviously, when we had shot the scene of her and I in bed, you know, in those different scenarios and settings, that was fun because it was just her and I. Yeah, we’d just kind of be comfortable and hang out with each other. Then, anytime they would be dancing and singing, it was unbelievable because you’re watching some of the best in the world."

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Burlesque hits theaters on November 24, 2010.