Kristen Stewart on Twilight: Its such a gay movie its all about oppression
Kristen Stewart covers the latest issue of Variety as sort of a preview of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Kristen is a regular at Sundance because she’s spent a huge chunk of the past fifteen years working in independent films. So much so that Sundance is honoring her this year with the Visionary Award, and she promises Variety that she plans to stay in Utah for the entire festival, not only to promote her latest two indie projects, but to see everyone else’s movies. The bulk of this Variety piece is about how Kristen Stewart is something wholly unique: a queer Millennial movie star. She’s out, she’s been out for years. She plays any kind of character she wants and she’s prioritized working with female and queer artists. The Variety piece is really good, and here are some highlights:
She’s comfortable with herself now: “People say to me, ‘Oh, you’ve just so come out of your shell.’ I’m like, ‘Well, yeah. I’m 33. It was really hard.’”
Deciding to come out on SNL in February 2017: “It wasn’t even like I was hiding. I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person.’ For so long, I was like, ‘Why are you trying to skewer me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? I’m a kid, and I don’t really know myself well enough yet.’ The idea of people going, ‘I knew that you were a little queer kid forever.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, you should honestly have seen me f–k my first boyfriend.’”
Her “I’m, like, so gay, dude” coming out on SNL: “It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview. ‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone.”
She’s good at playing straight though: “Because I’m an actor, I want people to like me, and I want certain parts. I have lots of different experiences that shape who I am that are very, very far from binary. But I did get good at the heteronormative quality. I play that role well. It comes from a somewhat real place — it’s not fake. But it’s f–ked up that if I was gayer, it wouldn’t be the case.”
Bringing her girlfriend Dylan Meyer to the Oscars in 2022. “It’s not that I wasn’t scared. It was just that there was no other way to live.”
She thinks “Twilight” has its own queer sparkle. “I can only see it now. I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”
She spends a lot of time hyping her new film Love Lies Bleeding, where she got to play a butch lesbian (that’s how she describes her character) for the first time and now she doesn’t want to stop playing those kinds of characters. She also skirts around the Rupert Sanders affair – in 2012, she was caught fooling around by an Us Weekly paparazzo and the whole thing blew up into a massive tabloid scandal. I can’t believe that was 12 years ago, sob. While Kristen doesn’t talk about that directly, she does say that she really appreciated Jodie Foster’s public support during that time, and Jodie is quoted at length in this Variety piece. Jodie still loves her and still has surrogate-mom energy towards Kristen, but Jodie also admires how Kristen lives her queer life out loud in a way Jodie never could. Anyway, it’s a good article and I got a little bit choked up at how this angsty lip-biter grew up and became a butch swan.
Does Kristen Stewart remember her lines from her most famous movies? https://t.co/7hVbcuhhj8 pic.twitter.com/xmnu2o50Uj
— Variety (@Variety) January 11, 2024
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