To celebrate what is easily one of the nine best days of the week, sink your teeth into these all-new stills from the upcoming Twilight sequel New Moon, brought to us by RobertandKristen.org.

In today’s installment, we have Kristen Stewart and Billy Burke sharing a tender father-daughter moment, Ashley Greene lending Kristen a helping hand, and Taylor Lautner, Kristen and Michael Welch engaged in an intense staircase conversation.

Check ‘em out and share your thoughts in the comments section!

But in real life, Welch is waging another battle altogether: The battle against acne.

In a hilarious new interview with Buzznet, Welch discusses his participation in Aczone: The Musical, a campaign to promote clear skin among the nation’s teens.

“Aczone: The Musical is a viral campaign designed to get teenagers aware of an amazing new acne treatment. We do this through song, dance, and story. I am the MC of this musical number,” explains Welch. “High school is tough enough. You don’t need terrible acne problems on top of everything else. It’s pretty ironic that we go through our ‘awkward’ phase during the time in our lives when impressing our peers is so immensely important to us. Why can’t we go through our awkward phase when we’re 80? Nobody would care! Is grandma NOT gonna get into the Bingo hall if she’s got one too many zits on her T-zone? Is Ethel’s eczema gonna prevent her from getting a seat at the Wednesday night Bridge table? I don’t think so!”

But since life is inherently unfair, Welch is doing what he can to level the playing field a little for teenagers through the power of song, dance, and pimple eradication.

“Only you have the power to determine your own happiness or misery,” Welch advises. “You get one shot at this life and I just want you to have the tools to walk with the confidence you deserve to own. If controlling your acne can help you get there, that’s all that matters.”

Spread the word, good sir. And the pimple cream.

Check out video of Welch introducing the musical, and the sure-to-be smash hit “Lovebot,” below:

When we asked what part of New Moon will surprise fans the most, he said that the biggest shocker, hands-down, will be the scenes with the Volturi in Italy. “Chris Weitz is one of the best directors out there…visually just really knows what to do with the camera, so I think Italy is going to look amazing,” Welch offered.

We also asked him about the much-talked-about partying the cast did while filming in Vancouver, but he claims that it wasn’t anything too wild.

“It was mostly just going out to dinner after everybody gets off work, and then maybe going back to somebody’s hotel room if we didn’t feel like going to bed yet to keep the party going, but that was about it,” says Welch.

Of course we also grilled him about Rob Pattinson, who it turns out helped him tremendously with his music (Mike plays the drums). RPattz—who contributed the song “Never Think” to the Twilight soundtrack and has been known to perform gigs under the alias Spunk Ransom—gave Welch tons of tips and advice on songwriting.

“He said the way that he does it which really freed him up to write some really interesting stuff is that he sort of picks a chord or just starts playing a melody of some kind, sees how it makes him feel emotionally, and then just kinda starts singing—not lyrics—but just kinda the foundation of what the lyrics would be,” the 21-year-old Los Angeles native reveals. “Which is why his songs have that very specific feel where he’s kinda like, ‘Nyaah, moooaah, woooah,’ you know what I mean? That’s how he writes the songs. He just sort of feels, picks a chord, sees how he feels emotionally, just starts singing in gibberish, and then writes the lyrics on top of that, and I think it’s a really interesting way of going about it. I’ve never heard of somebody doing it that way before. But, you know, I thought it was cool.”

Of course, if anyone can make gibberish sound cool, it’s our man Rob!

Share your thoughts on our Mike Welch interview in the comments section below!

E! Online reports that the cast of the movie has been talking about the difference between filming Twilight and filming its sequel New Moon—and the overwhelming consensus seems to be that they couldn’t be happier that director Chris Weitz has replaced Hardwicke.

“When we shot Twilight, it felt like it was an indie. We were racing the clock. Catherine [Hardwicke] was fantastic, but with New Moon it felt like we had more time to play,” opines Peter Facinelli, who plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen. “The atmospheres were different. They were both great…in their own ways. I just think New Moon is going to be incredible.”

Contrast that with the highly prepared approach taken by Weitz, as described by Michael Welch (aka Mike Newton): “When we all got on the set the first day, [Weitz] gave us this packet of 30 to 40 pages of what he wanted the film to look and feel like—how he was going to shoot it, all of that stuff. The thing is, both Chris and Catherine—I don’t want to say one is better than the other. They are polar opposites in terms of style. Catherine can only succeed in chaos, really. But Chris is the exact opposite; he’s so calm and has all his stuff together. He really made this film great.”

Certainly sounds like there’s a judgment in there among all the hedging to us.

Readers, have your say in the comments section: Do you think New Moon will be a vast improvement over Twilight thanks to the change in directors?

Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Christian Serratos and Elizabeth Reaser discussed everything from crazy fans to the most intense New Moon scene to how the sequel will match up to the original.

The general consensus: Serratos’ craziest fan encounter occurred when she was trapped in an elevator by a bunch of Twi-hards, New Moon will totally top Twilight, and the most intense New Moon scene is when Bella Swan gets a paper cut at a birthday party, prompting Jasper Hale to attack her.

“It gets very dangerous, very quick,” Reaser notes.

Sure, but not as dangerous as being trapped in an elevator by crazed vampire devotees.

Check out the video below:

Have your say in the comments section: Do you agree that New Moon will be able to top Twilight?