Kristen Stewart sits down for a chat with The Guardian and dishes on a wide range of topics including Snow White and the Huntsman, Twilight, paparazzi, her tomboyish childhood, beauty and going to auditions for commercials where she had to dance with the product. “And in those situations I became really like a pompous nine-year-old. I was like: ‘I don’t want to do those auditions any more. I feel silly.’” When she asked if she could ditch the final one, her mother said that, “Kristen! You have f*****g integrity! If you make an appointment, you go. I’ll fire your agent tomorrow.”
Kristen wanted to be an archaeologist. Yet, the roles in The Safety of Objects and Panic Room changed her plans. Next, she landed the role as Bella Swan in Twilight. According to a survey made by Forbes magazine, last year, for every dollar Stewart is paid, her films bring in an average of $55.83, making her the best-value actor around. But fame also has its negative part such as paparazzi. “But I’m good at evading those little twits. Once I lose them, once no one’s trying to make a buck off you, you know, I’m fine – I know at this point that there’s a buck to be made, which is weird considering I’m just walking down the street with dirty hair,” the young actress told The Guardian.
Speaking about her role in ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’, Stewart says that, “In the original she totally represents what a woman wanted to be back then: the ultimate maternal figure. She cleans house really well. It’s just that [women] do more than that now.” Still, this time they created a “bad-ass, girl power movie”, she says, in which the character’s strength is represented in a realistic way. “We’re not built to take out big guys in armour. So it was really more about being faster and smarter,” she explains.
When it comes to Hollywood and the pressure of constantly looking good, Kristen says that beauty is ruined. “If you’re not cool as well. If you don’t have the heart to back up your looks, you are ugly. I’ve met so many people that I thought were so gorgeous and talented and amazing. And then you meet them for one second and you’re like, you are wearing a costume, you are a fake, you are so unattractive’. And it doesn’t always come across in a picture, but you can be really beautiful in a still frame, and then, in life, moving around, you’re ugly. And that’s kind of what the movie’s about,” Stewart told The Guardian.
On her teenage years, the 22-year-old actress confesses she was an intense girl. “Yeah, I’m still a very intense person. I’m chilled out about some things. I’m cool. But definitely, I take things far too seriously … I am just a serious person. I love joking around, and it’s obviously about mood, because sometimes I can definitely be a silly idiot. But most of the time I am like this.” [She makes a sound as if her mouth has been suctioned shut.]
Kristen grew up with an older brother, Cameron, and adopted brother, Taylor. Speaking about her tomboyish childhood, the actress recalls that, “I don’t think I had a picture taken of me without a backwards baseball cap before the age of 14. You’d just connect skateboards to bikes and see how fast you can go down a hill without dying … I would go for it. But I would hurt myself. I’m always, always, always the one that is incredibly gung-ho, really excited, and then just before, you doubt yourself, and take a tumble,” she says.
Stewart also talks about another film she recently made, On the Road, with the director Walter Salles. “I think in order to do that book right, in order to make everyone happy – because there’s a lot of people sitting around going: ‘OK, let’s have it’ – it had to be spontaneous, it had to have that feeling of never quite knowing where someone’s going to jump or scream,” she says. “So sometimes it was a truer reading of the line to just forget it, and say it your own way.”
Photos courtesy of Getty Images
