Twilight Actor To Play Metal Murderer

05/22/09 11:32am

Twilight actor Jackson Rathbone (he's no Robert Pattinson, but teenage girls still apparently consider him to be dreamy) will go from playing a vampire to a murderous Norwegian black metal singer in Lords Of Chaos.

Rathbone will play Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh), the Burzum frontman who was imprisoned for murdering Mayhem guitarist Oystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) and setting fire to three churches in 1993.

The film is based on a book of the same name by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind and will be directed by Sion Sono when it begins shooting in Norway in September after three years of delays due to a lack of funding.

Vikernes called the book "a pool of mud" and said in a 2004 review on the Burzum website that the "vast majority" of statements made in it "are either misinterpretations; taken out of context; misunderstandings; malicious lies made by enemies; a result of ignorance; extreme exaggerations; and/or third-hand information at best. This includes the statements attributed to me!"

It was announced in March that Vikernes would soon be released from prison after serving about three-quarters of his 21-year sentence.