Two decades into her career and nearing a decade since shooting her final scene in The Twilight Saga, Kristen Stewart is taking control.
At 29, the actor knows who she is, what she wants to do, and she’s determined to get out there and do it.
“Those words strike a serious chord,” says Stewart.
“I definitely don’t want to sort through ‘maybes’ any more – I have to say that is something I have grown out of, but used to covet.
“I used to enjoy the fact that filmmaking was such a strange alchemy, you could never really control it, therefore if there was something appealing in a movie that didn’t seem as sturdy of a bet as maybe some others with a more reliable director or whatever, then I would still go for it.
“Now I’m really feeling the idea that, you know, as female filmmakers in this business right now, I only want to spend my time – which feels precious – on movies that I really stand with.”
Whether it’s last year’s popcorn action flick Charlie’s Angels or her upcoming art house biopic Seberg – about the actor Jean Seberg who was targeted by the FBI in the 1960s, opening January 30 – Stewart says she just wants to be able to look back at the “library of s--- you did in your life” and know that “I spent my time doing it for a good reason”.
“My instinct has always been something I’ve had no fear in following. But now that I’m trying to control things a little bit more it is an interesting balance of following instincts, but then knowing how to protect yourself as an artist and make sure to set yourself up for success.”
But just because she wants to stand with her work, doesn’t mean it all has to be serious, issues-based drama.
While the success part didn’t really pan out at the box office with Charlie’s Angels, Stewart loved the fact writer-director Elizabeth Banks saw her inner goofball and set it loose.
And her new action movie Underwater was all for the thrills: “Human beings scratching into places that they don’t belong and uncovering a wrath,” says Stewart.
“I thought that was a cool baseline of a thriller. I love a scary movie, I love watching people try and not die.”
On the flip side, being the person pretending to try and not die isn’t always a good time. “Literally I look back and I’m like, why did I do that?” she admits with a laugh.
Where Charlie’s Angels was brash and colourful, Underwater is tense and claustrophobic.
The thriller drops us at the deepest point of the ocean as a drilling and research rig springs a leak and all hell breaks loose. With communications shut off, Stewart’s Norah and a small band of survivors (including French star Vincent Cassel and comedic actor TJ Miller) attempt to cross the ocean floor to another station … but something is out there with them.
If Underwater is the underwater Alien, Stewart is the Ripley of the piece, doubling down on her action heroine credentials.
While she was drawn to the idea of doing a project less “in its own head” and more “just propelling yourself forward”, the Underwater shoot was as much a test of survival for her as it was for her character.
“It was really freeing to do Charlie’s Angels, but it was absolutely in no way freeing to do this movie,” she says.
For starters, given her fear of water, even taking a quick run into the waves “always seems like a daring act,” she says.
And this wasn’t so much a drip, as a constant drenching.
“It was so claustrophobic, really uncomfortable and wet and drippy and cold and just awful. It was f---ed up. In every way that it looks uncomfortable in the movie, it was.”
But, Stewart adds, “it was cool to test your limits. The water aspect was appealing ’cos I was like, ‘Man, if I can do that I will be really proud of myself’.”
And much like the impact Underwater aims to have on an audience, fear is the entire point.
“I never want to make a movie unless it scares me, unless there’s something about the story or the character that strikes a chord that is similar to terror,” Stewart says.
“Then moving towards that to figure out how to either get through it, or just understand why it exists, is usually why I want to make a movie.”
While she’s too young to have been directly influenced by Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, she had her own action icons growing up – “women that made it seem like it was possible,” she says.
At the top of that list?
“F---ing Angie” – Angelina Jolie.
“It’s because she also was such an incredible actress,” Stewart explains. “As a really little kid I was like, wow the same girl from Girl, Interrupted – she’s amazing in that movie and then she’s such a powerhouse in Tomb Raider and Wanted. I definitely grew up thinking, ‘Wow, I would like to do that’.”
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