'Twilight’ cast prepares for crush of crazed fans

Here’s a question for all you studio executives to ponder: How do you know when your latest holiday release is, in fact, a pop culture fetish object to rival the Beatles?

A quick tour of 'Twilight'

Slideshow: 'Twilight' cast signs autographs at Fashion Square Mall

Fans flock to `Twilight' premiere in Los Angeles

The answer: When you send your tenth-, seventeenth- and eighteenth-billed actors on a nationwide mall tour and still draw screaming, squealing crowds by the thousands.

STAR-CROSSED: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart explore forbidden love in “Twilight.” PHOTO COURTESY OF SUMMIT PUBLICITY

Welcome to the “Twilight” zone, where a modest little best-seller about teen vampires can get shipped off to Hollywood and generate a storm of fantasy-induced hysteria so overwhelming that some young fans have literally commanded cast members to bite them.

At the moment, no one seems more perplexed by the excitement than the three below-the-title actors in question. Gathered together in a Scottsdale hotel suite, they have the stunned but grateful air of lottery winners — which is understandable, considering each of them has made the jump from Hollywood bit player to teeny-bopper godhood in only a few weeks’ time.

“I’ve never been a rock star, so I don’t know what that feels like,” Edi Gathegi, the 29-year-old Kenya native who plays the villainous vampire Laurent, says evenly. “But I think I’m getting a taste of it on this tour.”

This is the third city the trio has visited — just the latest weave in an ambitious, coast-to-coast publicity campaign generated by the film’s distributor, Summit Entertainment.

If previous engagements are any indication, their appearance at the Fashion Square Mall will draw about 1,500 fans. Mostly girls, true, but some adult admirers, too.

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Valley author Stephenie Meyer, the movie has unearthed and empowered a passionately devoted fan base. During one mall appearance, an 8-year-old fan reportedly asked the movie’s male lead, Robert Pattinson of “Harry Potter” pseudo-fame, to turn her into a vampire. By biting her.

Thus far, none of the three actors dispatched to Scottsdale has been so propositioned, but Taylor Lautner — the 16-year-old “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” actor who plays proto-werewolf Jacob Black — offers an anecdote that’s as creepy.

“Yesterday in Denver, there was a mother with a 3-year-old daughter, and she and the 3-year-old slept on the cement so they could be first in line to see us,” Lautner recalls, with an amazed laugh. “It was like, 'These are the vampires and werewolf I told you about, honey. This is why we slept on the sidewalk!’ ”

Undoubtedly, much of the hype surrounding “Twilight” is about the hype itself — the throngs of hysterical fans, the tear-stained faces, the nonconsensual hugging.

Hugging is a major issue for the junketing “Twilight” actors. Per studio directive, all hug requests from fans must be flatly refused. However, talking about such encounters is encouraged. It’s a game, a playground-princess push-and-pull, and the cast dutifully plays along.

“Last night, there was a girl begging Taylor for a hug,” says Rachelle Lefevre, the 29-year-old actress who plays the vampire Victoria and serves as Lautner’s unofficial publicity-tour body guard. “And it looked like she was going to jump across the table, so my instinct kicked in … 'You can’t touch him!’ I felt so protective.”

Like her co-stars, Lefevre is humble and polite; almost self-consciously so. She probably suspects the truth — that the hundreds of frothing fans who will see her Thursday night are less compelled by her work in “Boston Legal” than by the intoxicatingly romantic story of mortal teen Bella (“Panic Room” moppet Kristen Stewart) and the sensitive, closeted vampire Edward (Pattinson). At this point, the three actors are more like Disneyland employees inhabiting Mickey Mouse costumes than bona fide matinee idols. 

But that could change when “Twilight” takes form on movie screens this weekend.

“Nobody has told us yet if we’re continuing with sequels, but we’re all so ready to go on,” she says. “This has been a dream job.”