Who is Xavier Samuel?

Xavier Samuel is the lucky actor who gets to play Riley in the movie Eclipse. Here's a bit of background information on both Xavier Samuel and Riley.


Xavier Samuel
Xavier Samuel was born in Australia on December 10th, 1983, which makes him 26 years old. He grew up in Adelaide, Australia. He has light brown hair and brown eyes. Xavier graduated from Rostrevor College in 2001.

Xavier's acting experience includes the Australian theatre, television, and a handful of Australian movies. Eclipse is Xavier's first big American movie.

Xavier says he hadn't read the Twilight Saga books before trying out for the role of Riley, but he did watch the movie on the airplane ride over.

Elle magazine recently interviewed Xavier Samuel. Check out their article, "Bloody Brilliant: The Next Twilight Heartthrob".


Riley
Riley was a newborn vampire in Eclipse. Victoria created him about a year before the story began, as the leader of her newborn vampire army in Seattle.

The newborn vampires were very strong, but volatile and hard to control. Apparently, they fought amongst themselves, so that by the time they showed up in Forks, there were only 18 newborns left with Riley. Riley, being a year older, had more control and maturity than the other newborns.

When Bella first met Riley, Bella described Riley as, "the blond boy...muscular and tall, maybe my age when he was changed." (page 541, Eclipse)

Victoria had seduced and manipulated Riley so that he would help her murder Bella. (Apparently, Riley and Victoria will share a highly-anticipated kissing scene in the movie.)

Edward told Riley about Victoria, "She's lying to you, Riley...She doesn't love you, Riley...Every kiss, every touch was a lie...You don't have to die for her lies." (pages 543-544, Eclipse)

I guess we'll have to watch the movie to see what Riley will do. And with Stephenie Meyer's new story, "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" coming out a few weeks before the movie, perhaps we'll get even more juicy background information about Riley and the other newborn vampires.

So, now that we've all seen the new Eclipse movie trailer, which features Riley leading the newborn vampire army, what do you think? Is Xavier Samuel a good choice to play Riley?