In this interview with CBR, Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun get very metaphysical about their approach to their performances in this complex but, ultimately, sweet film. Directed by Andy and Sam Zuchero, the movie uses a hybrid of live-action and animated scenes. The Buoy and the Satellite are practical props, built by Laird FX. As the film progresses, the two characters occupy a digital space. As the characters evolve on their journey of identity, the animation reflects this by becoming sharper more, for lack of a better term, realistic. Finally, by the end of the film, Stewart and Yeun play their characters in live-action, signifying they've reached a level of being indistinguishable from humanity. How they get there is the interesting part, and it's equal parts funny and heartbreaking. Their answers have been lightly edited for clarity.
CBR: Kristen, in the beginning of the film, the buoy imitates an influencer named Deja to convince the satellite that she's alive. This imitation then leads to her developing her own identity. Did you approach this performance as different characters, the same character or some mixture of the two?
Kristen Stewart: There's like a congruency that ties us all together, like even the people that would seem to be coming from totally different sides of the earth. And so, I think that the buoy can be nothing other than me. And when I say 'me,' I really mean me, because my character is also called 'Me.' But it's just I can't be anyone else other than myself.
I think that [the Buoy] is able to look around and sort of be jealous of certain things that make living easier, make people like you. I think that all of us do that. All of us, undeniably, all the time. Even if you're self-assured or self-possessed. We don't exist without each other. I wouldn't know how to be unless I watched other people 'be'; in some way. And then I kind of chose my own path. So, all the characters are super congruent. I think they have a lot of overlap.
CBR: That's really lovely, and it ties into the message of Love Me, especially considering that films with influencer characters tend to mock them. The film treats Deja as sincere, and she inspires the Buoy to become that better, more complete version of herself.
KS: Yeah, we were trying to not be so scathing about our influencers, because they're just so [vulnerable]. It's like she is the Buoy. [Deja is also] desperately trying to connect, even though she's not being the most honest. There's an honesty in that.
CBR: Steven, your performance as the Satellite was so nuanced. Early in the film, you capture the tenor of an AI assistant. Which lessened over time as the Satellite becomes more aware of his own identity. Did you approach playing the character as he was always sentient and just didn't know it?
Steven Yeun: I don't know.
KS: Like awareness of the 'awareness.' (Laughs)
SY: I think. I didn't try to ponder too much about it. If anything, the experience itself as we shot sequentially was kind of revealing as it went. And I don't know if I got to understand what consciousness and awareness is from that angle, but I did think at first this satellite is pure function. And it thrives on being [just] 'function.'
It's almost as if it is glad to surrender to just being a necessity or a thing that is required of it. In that way it's in some sort of peace, actually. because it doesn't have to refer to itself at all. Its life is 'I just do this thing and that's what I do.'
CBR: So, it's like awareness is inflicted on the character against its will?
SY: To then be pulled awake by [seeing his own] reflection is its own jarring, crazy experience. [When he meets the Buoy] it's like, 'Oh, you know about me? Define me, please. Help me know who I am.' But then it's like, 'Wait. I don't think that that's who I am?' And then he wars with that, then comes to understand that the [the Buoy] actually freed him and pulled him out of his stagnation, in that way.
So, I don't know if it was this conscious step-by-step thing. If anything, that's what was so fun about playing with Kristen. It just fell forward and revealed itself, and the exercise was almost getting out of the way of the film, making itself in that way and so. That was a trip.
KS: It's like you need to be jostled out of his overtly defined existence. I don't know. Typical man! (Laughs) I'm just saying, dude is someone who just needs to say, 'Cool. I do this thing. I have a job. I'm very valuable and functional.'
CBR: Well, without getting into spoilers, the Satellite never actually stops doing his job, right?
SY: Yeah, I came back to understanding the beauty of that function, too. There's just a symbiosis with the paradox of function and identity, and I think to me, what I love about our film is that it doesn't really [definitively take a stance].
[The film is] the entire image. Especially because our world right now feels so literal and binary. It feels refreshing to experience something where you don't really know. I'm flexible, and I'm equally rigid as I am flexible.
KS: It's like when you encounter certain people in your life, and you suddenly feel kind of rocketed back to kindergarten. In which you are essentially fundamental to your own being, but also totally undeveloped. You're like, 'Oh, f---. Possibility' or, more like, 'I feel young around you.' I feel like these two people — because the movie is symbolic and a metaphor and obviously not based on reality — they go, 'Oh, we needed to find each other in order to sort of dislodge [from being just functional].'
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