Alex Pettyfer :: Number Four with a bullet

Picture recent EDGE 'Eye Candy' subject Alex Pettyfer in the shower. He's aggressively stroking over and over trying to get to something that he just can't get off.

"I was in the shower yesterday," said the 20-year old British actor recently, "scrub, scrub, scrub and I said 'Why is this thing not coming off?'"

The 'thing' in question is not what you might be thinking; instead the temporary tattoos on his forearms that are there for a new film he's currently shooting called Now, which is set to release this fall and includes a hunky cast of Justin Timberlake, White Collar's Matt Bomer, Big Bang Theory's Johnny Galecki and Ethan Peck.

On this day, however, Pettyfer is talking about I Am Number Four, the Dreamworks sci-fi/action thriller opening this weekend nationwide. But, first, he shows his reddened arms where the tattoos are still evident. "As you can see," he explained, "I tried to attack it again this morning."

Drama Queen in the making?

Pettyfer is currently under another kind of attack as rumors of diva behavior and salary demands are spreading in the media. In a Hollywood Reporter article published last week with the headline "Drama Surrounds 'I Am Number Four' Star Alex Pettyfer" it was reported that the drama goes back to last summer's Pennsylvania shoot with Pettyfer clashing with director DJ Caruso, as well as asking Dreamworks to renegotiate his salary for the film.(In the neighborhood of $250,000, a generous amount for an actor who is, for the most part, unknown).

While I Am Number Four and his next film, Beastly (based on the Beauty and the Beast story) could launch the sexy Brit into superstardom, everyone knows in Hollywood that no film is a sure thing and Pettyfer might want to wait until he's proven himself before making any kind of grandiose demands.

During the I Am Number Four junket, however, EDGE's Jim Halterman didn't witness any bad behavior but in a room full of film critics and journalists, talent is usually on their best behavior no matter what the whispers are saying. Instead, Pettyfer could only praise the film adaptation of James Frey's I Am Number Four novel with Caruso casually sitting at his side.

In the story of I Am Number Four, nine infant aliens flee their home planet and hide on Earth. An invading, evil species called Mogadorians follow these aliens to our planet to hunt them down and kill them before they grow into their superpowers. Each alien is paired with a guardian (Justified star Timothy Olyphant plays Number Four's guardian) who must protect them. As the film opens, the first three aliens have been killed and since the aliens have to be killed in order, the life of Number Four (Pettyfer) is at risk and drives the action of the movie.

No stunt doubles

The lean, fit Pettyfer did not rely on stuntmen to do the majority of the stunts that his role in I Am Number Four required. "I did everything," he said, pleased with himself at his two-month training schedule before filming began. "DJ is a very hands-on director and is literally by your side every second. He created these phenomenal sets and these phenomenal situations and sticks you right in the middle and you don't really realize you're in a movie anymore."

Pettyfer wasn't completely alone in the actual stunt performing, though, and had a stunt team that he closely worked with. Caruso explained that the relationship between the actor and the stunt team was paramount in performing the riskier physical feats. "The trust between the stunt players pulling the wires, the timing of the wires being pulled in the countdown and the actors making sure they have their acting face on at the right moment...there's the technical side of that acting and then there's the acting side of that acting and I think that's really difficult."

One other presence on the set of I Am Number Four was heard more than seen in the plethora of accents from the actors in the film. Besides Pettyfer's British accent, co-star Callan McAuliffe (who plays nerdy sidekick Sam) is Australian as is actress Teresa Palmer (who plays Number Six). Caruso laughed and said he didn't have a grand scheme for casting so many non-Americans.

"They just happened to be the best for the role! I knew with Number Six I felt liberated because [in the film] these children were hiding all over the world and Number Six could be from anywhere and if everyone was from the Midwest it would be like they didn't hide them out very well so it just gave me some liberation."

Caruso knew Pettyfer was British but was completely shocked that McAuliffe wasn't American. "His audition tape came in to me first and I just fell in love with him and I thought he was this little kid from the Midwest who sent me the tape but when I read him and met him I found out he was Australian and it just blew me away."

A film like I Am Number Four relies heavily on special effects but when does the planning for the effects come into play in developing a project of this magnitude? "It comes in early on because a lot of the stunt training that [Alex] and Teresa had to do with the wire work had to be really well figured out and it's always evolving," explained Caruso, who had to learn some of the ins and outs of using CGI in film production. "It does come into play because you have to make certain decisions and certain commitments about frames and locking off frames or whether you don't lock off the camera. For me that was something completely new so that was my challenge as a filmmaker was learning a lot about that but it does come into play." He added that the quickly developing and changing advances make his job tough, as well "The technology at the beginning of the movie seven months ago is different from the technology last night. It just keeps evolving and you have to keep learning and that's a challenge."

Rumor has it...

While Pettyfer has the looks and the body of a movie star, he shared that he wasn't initially interested in drama or an acting career but the attention of an older man - out actor/writer/director Stephen Fry - changed his life and turned him onto a career in front of the camera.

"I went on this school trip and I didn't care about acting or about media and I wanted to be a racing driver. I walked into this audition room where Stephen Fry was and he must've taken a fancy and he and the producers stuck me into this small TV movies called Tom Brown's Schooldays [with Fry starring as the young boy's teacher], which was a great experience and I loved every second and realized as long as this journey was going to go forward I was going to go with it because who doesn't like playing dress up."

On the eve of the film opening and rumors swirling about Pettyfer already, the actor did squash a few rumors that are currently out there. Is Pettyfer's mother best friends with the mother of hunky film star Channing Tatum? Pettyfer laughs and says no. There's also the rumor that Pettyfer's father was an actor and his mother was a beautiful model and host. Any truth to those? No again, he says, laughing and explaining that his father is a builder and his mother is an interior decorator. All those rumors aside, if I Am Number Four is a big hit, let's hope we continue to see Pettyfer in projects but that he leaves the diva behavior and drama for life in front of the camera only.

I Am Number Four opens on Friday. For more on the film, go to go to the film's website.