Interview

HOPPER: [both laugh] You know, you’re giving really wonderful performances. Since you didn’t know you’d be making sequels when you were making the first Twilight, has it been difficult for you to get back into character for these new ones?

STEWART: I’ve actually always been interested in following a character more long term, but the only place to really do that as an actor is on a TV series. But the Twilight series is cool because you know what’s ahead of you—all of the books have been written. And I get breaks in between. It’s sort of a depressing thing to lose a character just when you’ve been able to get to know her. Usually, at the end of a film it’s like I’ve finally gotten to know this person completely, and then we’re done. That actually happened on the set of Twilight, and then it happened again on New Moon. Each time my character Bella became a different person, and I got to know that person and take her to the next level.

HOPPER: Have you been able to enjoy it? Or do you feel more pressure doing these sequels?

STEWART: I do feel more of a pressurized strain than what is typical for me. Usually, what drives you is your own personal responsibility to the script and the character and the people you are working with. But in this case, I have a responsibility not only to that but to everyone who has personal involvement in the books—and now that spans the world. It’s an insane concept. There are certain things in Twilight . . . As much as I’m proud of that movie and I do like it, I feel like maybe I brought too much of myself to the character. I feel like I really know Bella now. But most readers feel like they know Bella because it’s a first-person narrative. She’s like a little vessel and everyone experiences the story through her. All of these girls who are fans personally feel like they encapsulate that character. So it’s like, “How the hell am I going to do that for all of them? It’s impossible!” But I’ve decided, if you’re just unabashedly honest all of the time, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

HOPPER: These Twilight books have some dark material.

STEWART: But the movies aren’t that dark, as much as we’d all have loved to have made those films. But as pretty as it is to watch and as nice as it is to have watched these two characters find solace in each other, everything around them is absolute chaos. I mean, you have to question their motivations—to watch two people so unhealthily devoted to each other . . . I stand behind everything that they do. I have to justify it in my mind, or else I couldn’t play the character. But they are definitely not the most pragmatic characters. The weirdest fucking themes run through this story—like dominance and masochism. I mean, you always have to realize that the story needs to make sense to the 11-year-olds who read the book and aren’t necessarily going to be viewing a scene as foreplay. But then there is the other segment of the audience—a large percentage—who does see the scene as foreplay. And it’s pretty deep, heady foreplay. [laughs] So it’s fun to play it both ways. I mean, I don’t know what it feels like to make out with my vampire boyfriend because it isn’t something that anybody has ever felt. But it’s funny to think that a lot of the audience is 10 years old and will maybe one day grow up to realize there are a lot of involved thoughts in Twilight that they didn’t see before.

HOPPER: Well, you’re getting a lot of attention.

STEWART: Yeah, it’s weird. There’s an idea about who I am that’s eternally projected onto me, and then I almost feel like I have to fulfill that role. Even when things come out of my mouth, I want to be sure I’m saying exactly what I mean. All I’m thinking of is the fact that everything that I say is going to be criticized—not criticized, just evaluated and analyzed. And it’s always something that matters so much to me that doesn’t come out right. But in terms of how my life has changed, I never really went out a whole lot before. I’m sort of an in-my-head kind of person. I wish I could take more walks . . .

HOPPER: You can’t take walks?

STEWART: I’d like to take more walks after work, instead of having to come back to my hotel room and not leave. So it can be boring. I’ve been working as an actress since I was very young, and I know a lot of people who are actors who don’t have to deal with having a persona . . . You know, if you look up the word persona, it isn’t even real. The whole meaning of the word is that it’s made up, and it’s like I didn’t even get to make up my own. It can be annoying. But I have a really strong feeling that this is going to go away, that this is the most intense it’s going to get—and could get—and that it’s fleeting. So in a few years, I will hopefully become more like the people I want to become like.

HOPPER: Does it bother you to see yourself in the tabloids?

STEWART: There’s nothing you can do about it, to be honest. I don’t leave my hotel room—literally, I don’t. I don’t talk to anybody about my personal life, and maybe that perpetuates it, too. But it’s really important to own what you want to own and keep it to yourself. That said, the only way for me not to have somebody know where I went the night before is if I didn’t go out at all. So that’s what I’m trading. It depends what mood I’m in. Some nights, I think, “You know what? I don’t care. I’m just going to do what I want to do.” Then the next day I think, “Ugh.Now everyone thinks I’m going out to get the attention.” But it’s like, no, I actually, for a second, thought that maybe I could be like a normal person.

HOPPER: I was looking at all the films you’ve done, and you’ve worked with some extraordinarily talented people: Patricia Clarkson—god, she’s a great actress—and Jodie Foster. Just really wonderful people. And your performances are very different. You started when you were nine years old. You wanted to act, right? It wasn’t like you were forced into it because your parents were in the industry?

STEWART: No. Not at all.

HOPPER: Because Dean Stockwell is one of my best friends, and he has horror stories about acting when he was a kid. But you wanted to do this, right?

STEWART: It’s a weird thing to expect a child that young to say what they want to do, like act. I’m not sure it was a natural inclination for me either, but it was something that I fell into. To be honest, I had fun at first. It was the first thing I ever thrived at. My parents are crew. They were both baffled that I wanted to act. But they support anything that me and my brothers want to do. It was something I thought was fun because I grew up on sets. And then a few years later, I grew up and acting became very different to me. I think I was about 13.