Jacob Black

When Bella arrives in Forks, the pickup her dad gives her used to be Billy's, and Jacob is the one who rebuilt the engine. On the beach at La Push, he tells her an old tribal legend: the Quileutes are said to descend from wolves, and the Cullens, called the Cold Ones, can't set foot on the reservation because of a treaty. Jacob thinks it's all nonsense, but the talk helps Bella figure out Edward's secret.

At the end, Jacob shows up at prom with a message from his dad: Billy wants Bella to stay away from Edward.

After Edward leaves, Bella turns up at Jacob's house with two old motorcycles, and they spend weeks fixing them together. Jacob becomes her best friend and falls for her. Then he starts running fevers, cuts his hair, gets a tattoo and begins hanging out with Sam Uley's group, pulling away from Bella without explanation.

When Laurent tries to kill Bella in the meadow, a pack of giant wolves kills him. Jacob reveals he's one of the wolves and that they exist to protect the tribe from vampires. He saves Bella when she jumps off a cliff, but she leaves for Italy after Edward. When she gets back, Jacob reminds the Cullens that the treaty forbids them from turning a human.

Jacob tells Bella he loves her and kisses her against her will; she punches him and hurts her hand. Even so, he and the pack join the Cullens against Victoria's army. In the mountains, on a snowstorm night, Jacob, whose body always runs hot, keeps Bella warm in the tent while Edward looks on.

When he finds out Bella is marrying Edward, he threatens to throw himself into the fight to die, and she kisses him. In the battle, Jacob saves Leah from a newborn but gets crushed and breaks several bones. Bella visits him and says she has chosen Edward. He accepts it, reluctantly.

Jacob comes back for the wedding and is furious when Bella tells him she wants her honeymoon as a human. When he learns she's pregnant and wasting away, he begs her to end the pregnancy. Sam decides the pack will kill Bella and the baby. Jacob refuses to obey, breaks from Sam and forms his own pack with Seth and Leah Clearwater to protect the Cullens.

At the birth, Jacob tries to revive Bella while Edward injects the venom. Thinking the baby killed her, he goes to kill Renesmee, but when he looks into her eyes he imprints: the wolves' bond with their soulmate. Under wolf law, no one may harm someone a wolf has imprinted on, and the pack's threat is over.

Jacob never leaves Renesmee's side. When Bella finds out about the imprint, she goes after him and ends up hurting Seth. To put Charlie's mind at ease, Jacob turns into a wolf in front of him and says Bella has changed, without telling him more.

When the Volturi arrive, the wolves stand with the Cullens. Before the showdown, Bella hands Renesmee to Jacob so he can run with her if things go wrong. Alice's vision and Nahuel's arrival end the threat, and Alice sees a future where Jacob and a grown-up Renesmee are together.

In the first book, Jacob is a small character, there so Bella can hear the legend of the Cold Ones. Stephenie Meyer called him her favorite gift from the second book, because his role grew as she wrote. In the books he has two older twin sisters, Rachel and Rebecca. Taylor Lautner nearly lost the part for the second film because of the physique the character comes to require, but he bulked up and won over director Chris Weitz.