Lautner: ‘Shirtless ‘Cuckoo’ scene makes fun of my image’

Taylor Lautner has explained that his shirtless scene in an upcoming episode of Cuckoo pokes fun at his willingness to strip on screen.

The 22-year-old actor is known for baring his toned torso in the Twilight movies, in which he played hot-headed werewolf Jacob Black. In a trailer for the second series of the BBC3 sitcom Cuckoo, Lautner’s character is seen accidentally dropping his towel.

Asked whether the scene is intended to be tongue-in-cheek, he told our friends at Heat: “Yes, absolutely. It’s great to be able to make fun of yourself. And when we were first discussing the show we all agreed that could be the one shirtless scene in the whole season. It was all fun and games.”

Lautner has replaced fellow American actor Andy Samberg in Cuckoo, who departed the British comedy after one series to focus on his US sitcom Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Explaining why he took on a role in the cult British sitcom, the Twilight star said: “I hadn’t seen the show originally, but the producers reached out and said they’d love for me to look at it and see if I was interested. So I watched the first series and loved it from beginning to end.

“I knew it would be something completely different for me”, he added, “and that was the biggest thing that attracted me to it.”

The trailer for the second series of Cuckoo was released last week – click here to watch Lautner dropping his towel.

The second series of Cuckoo begins this Thursday (August 7) at 10pm on BBC3.