Kristen's interview with the Sydney Morning Herald for 'Personal Shopper'

Playing Bella Swan in the phenomenally successful Twilight series brought the teenage Kristen Stewart global adoration and ensconced her as one half of a Hollywood power couple with her onscreen – and offscreen – sweetheart Robert Pattinson.

But far from flourishing under the media's flashing bulbs, the starlet appeared to grow surlier, moodier and more frustrated as each instalment of the gargantuan vampire franchise pushed her further into the spotlight, and for a while it seemed like she may withdraw entirely.

"I was really, really young; I was 17," she says. "It was too insane. It was too scary to try to make peace with how so many people wanted to know every detail about my life. They wanted everything. It was too much. I couldn't break it down and digest what was happening. I was too insecure to lay it out for what it was."

Yet despite the more troubling aspects of her swift rise to fame, Stewart has learnt to appreciate that those years made her who she is today. "It's central to my personal history; it shaped me incalculably and taught me a lot of lessons about myself, about people, about society," she reveals. "It's funny how much I hated the attention. I really hated it – I don't think that was a secret – but now I don't look back at it and mourn and think, 'What an awful time, I'm traumatised.' It more fascinates me."

Now 26, the actress has matured into a confident and outspoken woman. Far from buckling under the pressure to be a cookie-cutter starlet, she is creating her own brand as a punchy LGBTI icon and serious artist, eschewing the commercial dead certs for European arthouse titles like Equals, Clouds of Sils Maria and her most recent venture, Personal Shopper.

Directed by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas – who previously worked with the actress on Sils Maria – the film tells the tale of Stewart's Maureen, an American living in Paris and working as a personal shopper for a major celebrity. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she begins receiving messages on her phone from her recently deceased twin brother and is haunted by his ghost-like presence, sending her into a downward spiral of self-doubt as she begins to question her own sanity.

The film is a showcase for arguably the best performance of Stewart's career, garnering huge praise from critics and earning Assayas the Best Director gong at last year's Cannes Film Festival. But while enormously satisfying artistically, Stewart admits that making the film was a gruelling and lonely experience.

"It was a very emotional film and it's my way of working that I push myself as far as I can go towards reaching those extremes," she says. "Maureen is constantly expending all her energy and frantically moving around because it distracts her from facing up to her grief. But that's what makes the process of acting exciting for me. I feel more alive and fulfilled when I'm suffering and reaching the point of exhaustion." 

As an isolated and fragile Maureen teeters on the brink of madness, the film doesn't try to explain the supernatural happenings, but rather explores them as a side-effect of her grief. Naturally, Stewart's own experience as a reluctant, lauded A-lister went some way to helping her relate to her character's isolation. But even so, the actress says here was very little she could do to prepare for such a traumatic role.

"She's an American in Paris; she's an alien in every sense. She's entrenched, entombed in the grieving process for her twin brother. She's a half-person, fractured and broken. This is a woman who wants so badly to believe in anything concrete because she's shell-shocked, because her belief system is completely overwrought by what she's going through. There's a never-ending, crucifying string of maybes which chip and knock away at her logic and at herself."

The film, while not exactly providing any answers, does pose a lot of existential questions about life, death and fate, an aspect of the process which Stewart says "scared, excited and moved" her.

"Because every day, we all encounter things and moments and events that we can't articulate," she says fervently. "Like a vibe from a person, an atmosphere of a place that you can't explain, that you can't touch or see but you can feel. All of us can say we've experienced those minutes of prophecy, where we dreamt of what might happen and then it happens." 

It is difficult to determine whether Stewart's career is one she dreamt of, or if it has been a natural evolution of her childhood. Born in LA to parents who both work in the entertainment industry – her father, John, is a TV producer and stage manager; her mother, Jules, who is originally from Queensland, is a script supervisor – Stewart practically grew up on film sets and landed her first big role aged only nine in 2002's Panic Room, which starred Jodie Foster.

She has said she originally wanted to become a filmmaker, an ambition she went some way to fulfilling when directing her first short: Come Swim. "I've never been happier than I've felt working on it," Stewart reflects. "I've wanted to direct since I was nine. With acting, you can work on a project, then walk away after the shoot is over and move on to the next project. As a director, you're involved at every step along the way."

Premiering the 17-minute short at Sundance last year, the Californian beauty promoted it in an interview at the Sundance Studio. Intelligent, sincere and articulate in the interview, she was worlds away from the unresponsive surly teen of the Twilight era. In fact, during her recent stint as a Saturday Night Live host, she appeared to make fun of her "too cool for school" persona with the help of regulars Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, who rode in on an enormous motorcycle wearing ripped clothes and smoking cigarettes.

It was also during this SNL show that Stewart, who's been romantically linked to several women in recent years, came out after joking that President Donald Trump didn't like her because he was in love with Robert Pattinson and because she was "like, so gay, dude". And while she still values her privacy, Stewart is far more open than before. "I've found a way to live my life and not feel like I'm hiding at all," she declares. "And that's pretty apparent for anyone who cares – not that everyone does. But if you had been tracking it in any way, it's more apparent. I'm more relaxed than I used to be."

Alongside her film work, Stewart is fast becoming a fashion icon, having appeared in several campaigns for French fashion house Chanel and developed her own brand of tomboy chic: rolled-up boyfriend jeans with baseball boots; bold pantsuits with elegant heels. Recently she debuted a new hairstyle – a bleach-blonde buzzcut – which sent style blogs into a frenzy, and last year took to Chanel's front row with her rumoured girlfriend at the time, musician St Vincent.

But despite her penchant for Gucci loafers and couture frocks, there's still a side of the fashion industry that Stewart finds frustrating. "I see opposing, duelling sides to the concept of the fashion world and both have a voice – one that speaks to the vulnerabilities of art, the other to superficiality," she says.

"There are those drawn to fashion for the self-gratification: they use it to win the popularity contest. I don't get that, I don't vibe with that. There are the artists, those drawn to beauty, who can't help but weep and be mesmerised at the creation and beauty, which is celebrated alongside the physical form and aesthetic. They appreciate and they live for art."

One might easily mistake Stewart's irritability for apathy, but listen closely and there is evidence to suggest the opposite is true. She is a young artist who almost cares too deeply about the creative process and what art should stand for, and given space to nurture her vision she may, in time, come up with something truly remarkable. Meanwhile, she is finally learning to just enjoy the ride.

"It's so important to be able to understand as soon as you can what you really want in life and to find a way to be happy," she says. "I'm looking forward to everything and I feel really good."

Personal Shopper is in cinemas on April 13 in Australia.

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Video: Ashley Greene mentions Kristen with Entertainment Tonight

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Scans: Kristen's interview in Who magazine (Australia)

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Olivier Assayas talks about 'Personal Shopper' and mentions Kristen with Interview magazine

Personal Shopper is not what you'd expect from its title or trailer. Written and directed by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, it is not a film about the glamorous fashion world, though, as a backdrop, it does serve as a jarring contrast to the protagonist's personal life. It isn't entirely about the supernatural, either, in spite of some strange events. Rather, it's an exploration of grief and identity following a tremendous loss.

Starring Kristen Stewart, who previously worked with Assayas on Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper follows Maureen, a young American working in Paris. Just over three months ago, Maureen's twin brother passed away, and she's been trying to communicate with him ever since. She has a life somewhere—a boyfriend waiting for her—but she lingers on in Paris in a job she feels no connection to, hoping for a sign. "Maureen is like half a person," Assayas says when we meet him in New York, midway through Personal Shopper's festival run (it premiered at Cannes, and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and the London Film Festival, among others). "It's not like she's just mourning, she's lost half of herself and wants to become one again," he continues. "It's a very lonely process—the process of mourning is always lonely—and it puts into question issues that she never had to deal with before. All of a sudden, she's forced by life to reinvent herself."

EMMA BROWN: When did you first start working on this film?

OLIVIER ASSAYAS: I started working on this film exactly in November 2015. I was coming back from Toronto where I had been preparing a film that fell apart. We lost our financing 24 hours before shooting, so it was like, what's the next move? I just sat down and wrote, fairly fast, this screenplay. I started from scratch. Usually when I write scripts it's a long process. It's layer after layer, I take notes, come back to it six months later, and so on and so forth. Here, I wanted to do something with the energy of the moment—the desire I had to shoot and somehow overcome the frustration of that movie that did not happen. I wrote it in the winter of that year. I like to start preparing the film as early as I can because you need to keep the energy going. I hate to write and spend months just waiting for the film to get financed. Then when you start preparing the film and you shoot it, you've already forgotten why you wanted to make the film in the first place. I like to have some kind of coherent energy that takes you through writing, preparing, shooting.

BROWN: Did you begin with the character of Maureen?

ASSAYAS: Absolutely. I had nothing else but the character of Maureen. It grew from there. I was drawn to this character who was a part of the proletariat of the fashion industry and who did a job she didn't like and found some salvation through imagination, art. It grew into something slightly different, but that's where it started.

BROWN: When did the idea of Maureen trying to communicate with this other world come about? 

ASSAYAS: I just pushed the idea towards that fervor. Initially, it was all about finding consolation in art and music, but that was not enough. That did not give me enough drive. I wanted to make a movie that would deal with what we call the paranormal. I think what inspired this film was also this kind of mood. Except I was not sure where the limit was, where the border was, and gradually I pushed the border and realized that what I really wanted was someone who finds the door to another world. That involved, of course, the ghost and other things.

Movies are explorations; they take you on a path, and I think it's always better if it's a path that you don't know, that takes twists and turns that you can't predict. That's what's entertaining about movies. That's what's entertaining about novels. I like the idea of something that's rooted in the material world, that's very down-to-earth. We're following someone who does this everyday, very mundane job, who carries bags from one place to another and drives her bike. And gradually, it morphs into someone who's involved in something a bit more complex than that. The idea to have both something that belongs to what we call supernatural and, at the same time, is anchored in the real world, I think it gives more strength to whatever has to do with the real world and whatever has to do with some transcendence of the material world. 

BROWN: It's interesting that you chose to make Maureen a personal shopper. As you say, what she's doing is pretty mundane, but she's still in the fashion world, which is something that we think of as very glamorous and not mundane at all.

ASSAYAS: It was interesting to me to have both. I wanted her to deal with something that has to do with the surface. It doesn't get more materialistic than the fashion industry, which is defined by the fact that it deals with surface. Also, there is nothing more alienating than dressing another person—doing a job that is literally separated from whatever is any of your personal or individual concern. That's one side of it. The other side of it, I wanted it to be something she could be ambivalent about, the same way we are ambivalent about our relationship to the modern world and how the world is changing around us. It's both scary and fascinating, and we are afraid of it, but at the same time we want to be a part of it. I was also interested in something that could also be part of her own questioning, trying to connect with her own femininity. She's not sure of the person she is anymore.

BROWN: Did you always know you wanted Kristen to play Maureen?

ASSAYAS: Consciously or unconsciously? I wrote it not sure she would do it; I thought she might be scared of it or think it's too weird. I could've understood it. I did not want to admit that I was actually writing for Kristen because I didn't want to be disappointed. Then when I finished the screenplay she was in Paris and we discussed it and she read it and related to it. I think it had been for her all along.

BROWN: You said at the Toronto Film Festival that Kristen was really a collaborator in terms of the direction. Is that something that has happened to you before with an actor?

ASSAYAS: It happened when I was working with Édgar Ramírez when we did Carlos. Édgar brought a lot to the story, because he was in every single shot, every single day. He carried the burden of the relationship to Carlos. Carlos is a horrible character in many ways, and I think that if I had to deal on my own with the issues of Carlos, it would have been unbearable for me. Édgar just took over in that he carried on his shoulders the weight of Carlos. In that sense, it was a similar collaboration. I think it was also a bit similar when I made Boarding Gate with Asia Argento, who is an actress somewhat similar to Kristen in terms of her mixture of intelligence and instinct. But still, I think that in Personal Shopper I pushed it in a different area. In Personal Shopper, there is basically one character who defines the emotion in the film, who recreates the film from the inside. Whatever the film is, it's a creation we share, Kristen and myself.

BROWN: I saw Personal Shopper at TIFF, and when I was coming out of the cinema, the people behind me where talking about how they thought Maureen was in Limbo throughout the film.

ASSAYAS: Sure. It's not a wrong way of seeing it.

BROWN: Has anyone ever said something to you about one of your films where you felt like, "Oh, I never thought about that before, but that makes sense"?

ASSAYAS: Yeah, including myself in the sense that sometimes when I'm discussing the film, something comes up out of what I'm saying. When I make films I'm very intuitive; I'm instinctive. When you are shooting there's little time to think about abstract ideas, it's about getting things done, getting them right, and trying to channel the energies and get the best of whatever you have on your set. It's only once the film is finished that it's like, "Okay, let's try to figure out what happened." Try to figure out exactly what I did. I think movies are expressions of our imagination; they are expressions of our conscious and of our subconscious. I think that movies can be analyzed the way dreams are analyzed, and sometimes I feel that the viewers or the journalists I discuss the film with are psychoanalysts who are trying to make sense of my dreams. [laughs]

BROWN: When you are developing a movie, making a movie, and the showing it to people and discussing it, it's sort of this living entity. Is there a moment when is no longer alive for you?

ASSAYAS: Totally. I think that the mourning process of the film involves discussing it, dissecting it, and at some point, you get bored with it. I'm not there yet, but I know I will be there at some point. That's the moment when I know I need to turn the page and move on and recharge my batteries.

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New/old outtakes from Elle UK - September 2016 (Tagged)

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Check out the full interview and photoshoot in our previous post here.

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'Personal Shopper' costar Sigrid Bouaziz mentions Kristen with W Magazine

Who are your style icons?

Chloé Sevigny, because she's modern and sensual. Or Kristen Stewart; boyish, ultra-feminine, and sensual all at the same time.

You just worked with Stewart, as well as directer Olivier Assayas in Personal Shopper. What was that experience like?

I loved it so much. Both of them were so caring; it was a deep, rare, and generous exchange between us.

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Olivier Assayas talks 'Personal Shopper' and Kristen with AM NY

What, to you, makes Kristen such a great screen presence?
I think she’s incredibly gifted. I think also she has this completely fascinating relationship with the camera. It’s something beyond her own talents. She has it. It’s something that’s obvious. It’s something that struck me the first time I saw her onscreen in Sean Penn’s film, “Into the Wild.” She stands out. There is something that happens when she’s onscreen that’s beyond analyzing. What’s exciting about her is the mixture she has of animal instinct and deep technical knowledge of what she’s doing.

Do you encounter that much?
It’s very rare to have a combination of the two. You have great, very technical actresses, you have intuitive actresses, but actresses who have both, who know how to use their instinct to control in very nuanced ways what they do, it’s pretty unique.

What about for “Personal Shopper,” specifically?
In terms of a movie like this one, which deals with the supernatural, with the invisible, I thought it was really important to have an actress that’s as grounded and real as Kristen. The thing is, Kristen brings everything back to something very human, simple, obvious, and she connects that with the audience.

Are you guys going to work together again?
I would make another film with her tomorrow. I just don’t have the subject yet, but I’m sure I will find it. I think there’s really space for us to make another film. I would love it to happen.

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'Personal Shopper' costume designer, Juergen Doering talks about the film and Kristen (Telegraph, Hello, Gay Star News)

Telegraph

Costume designer Juergen Doering was responsible for the wardrobe, and worked with director Olivier Assayas and the cast to piece together his own impression of how it should look. “First I read the script and I asked Olivier to tell me in three adjectives what he thinks about each character,” explains Doering. “Then I looked at the cast - so I led with the character first and the person second. Then I went to the actors and, without telling them what the director had said, I asked ‘How did you get this part and how do you see it?’ Because Olivier likes for people to feel the character and feel the clothes.”

There’s a noticeable difference between Maureen’s day-to-day clothing and the more elevated style of her boss. “We were thinking that Maureen’s American, she’s in Paris, she’s wearing jeans, she’s a little bit rugged - sneakers, vintage, sweaters,” says Doering. “I looked at some vintage Fruit of the Loom sweaters at a shop in Paris, and was looking for things that you could believe a girl like this had picked at the flea market. The flying jacket in brown leather, very manly, for when she’s always on the bike - a young person will try things.”

As the film progresses - spoiler alert - Maureen sneakily borrows and wears some of her client’s designer pieces, including a Vionnet organza gown with a harness, something that was specifically requested by Assayas. “I was looking in all the couture collections for a harness dress,” says Doering. “The director said ‘Maybe it’s a harness over a dress, or maybe it’s part of the dress.’ In the end I saw it at Vionnet and Olivier liked it immediately. We chose black because there is something ambiguous about her personality: she says she hates the job she is doing and the girl she is picking the things for, but when she comes to desire men, she wants to be that woman she hates.”

Maureen also borrows a silver sequinned Chanel dress. As Stewart has fronted several Chanel campaigns, it was no surprise to see the fashion house popping up in her movie - though Doering says there was no contractual obligation involved. “We know the team at Chanel well, but if we didn’t find what we wanted, we had no pressure,” he says. “I asked the girls there, ‘Do you have something with sequins?’ and they said ‘Oh we have this old dress that no one has worn before.’ And I saw it and I thought ‘Oh, this is it.’” It may be the only time you’ll see Stewart in a Chanel dress that doesn’t fit like a glove: “Of course we didn’t fit it onto Kristen, because it is not supposed to be her own dress. She feels uncomfortable in the dress, it’s not hers - but she likes it because it’s not correct for her to wear it.”

Though the contrast between Maureen’s casual wardrobe and this highly polished eveningwear is visually dramatic, it somehow feels like a natural fit for Stewart. The actress is known for her grungy personal style of T-shirts and Converse, but she’s also a muse for Karl Lagerfeld and a fixture on the front row. Working with her was easy, explains Doering: “Kristen knows her stuff. She loved Chanel before she was famous. For her it was easy to jump from the jeans to the dress, no trouble.”

He clearly felt that they had a meeting of minds. “Often actresses they have no taste!” he laughs. “So it’s good to actually have a conversation with someone who knows.”

Hello Magazine

What were the main things you had to consider wardrobe-wise with the film? 

"The story has many levels. You have a mourning part, because Kristen's character recently lost her twin brother and she's looking to connect to his soul after the death – that's one part of the film when there are no clothes. And then there is the part where she works as a stylist for a female celebrity, who is a bit like a Kardashian, but she’s not very nice, and she hates her. At this point she wears a casual, vintage-y wardrobe, but not standout clothes. It's very personal, a little boyish; like Kristen can be - a jean, leather bomber jackets, and nice wool sweaters – it's a French style in a way. And the other element is that she is cruising a guy, and when she has to meet him she wears a crazy, shiny, embroidered Chanel dress."

How did you get into costume design? 

"At the start of my career I was in fashion design andI worked for Karl Lagerfeld, but it was not the famous icon Karl of today, it was the beginning of his time at Chanel. Then I worked in Yves Saint Laurent, which was where I really refined the culture of fashion. I was not making a dress for the sake of it; I was interested in the culture of making a dress. When Mr St Laurent died fashion changed a lot, with modernisation and over-marketing luxury; I didn’t like it. A guy with the pencil from marketing school was telling designers what to produce. So I thought, no, I need something more free and creative, so I moved to cinema. A girlfriend of mine was doing costume design and she said to me, 'Why don’t you come and assist me on a film and see if you like it?' loved it!"

Kristen is an ambassador for Chanel… 

"Yes she is, and we worked with Chanel for Clouds of Sils Maria, the film before Personal Shopper. Chanel always invited Kristen to their fashion shows and dressed her for them, and everybody said, 'Oh that girl is interesting', which she was. And then she made the advertisement for their glasses and makeup. The real Chanel headquarters in Paris appears in the film."

Is Kristen as comfortable in a polo top as she is in a Chanel gown?

"Yes, because the real chic is to be yourself, and not to try to be the dress. The dress has to come to you, not the contrary; and Kristen understands that exactly. When she put the Chanel clothes on for the movie, she didn't change anything about herself or the way she moved - if she is wearing a sweater or very cheap T-shirts she acts the same. She's pretty and young and moves well so everything follows her. She's fabulous."

Is it difficult to make things look authentic in a film? 

"My job is to make clothes look credible, true, but I must not forget that it needs to be cinematographic, because cinema is not real life - it has to be with a special line - if it's realistic, it has to be a little bit above reality. For example, for the main dress I could have chosen a shiny or silver dress, but the Chanel dress has something really chic – although it's not something you would enjoy to wear to a party because you can’t sit in it, it's heavy and you can't move because it's really 'plumpy' but nobody watching the film knows so it gives to the image something more powerful.”

Are there any celebrities you think are really stylish now? 

"That's a difficult question for me because I like people to get dressed the way they really are, and not the way someone [a stylist] dresses them - and today a lot of these stars have no personal look. A really chic person for me is, what's her name…oh…. the British girl with the very blonde hair, like this [he clips his temple with his hand]. She's a blonde, very skinny and from Scotland…I will have to call my sister. [He calls his sister and speaks to her in French]. It's Tilda Swinton! I love her because she has something personal, she follows nothing and is strong and free – raffinée."

Gay Star News

The man responsible for the amazing looks in the film is gay costume designer Jurgen Doering.

‘I’ve worked with Kristen two times,’ says Jurgen, referring to Personal Shopper director Olivier Assayas’s last movie; the amazing Clouds of Sils Maria (a drama with a strong LGBTI subtext, also starring Juliet Binoche). ‘Kristen is very inspiring and easygoing with the clothes, and easy to work with,’ he tells us.

Here, he talks about gay people in the movie industry, Kristen’s dual sense of style, and the one item of clothing that belongs in every wardrobe…

In the film, Maureen dresses casually, but is also fascinated by high fashion – that’s so like Kristen!
You’re right. In real life Kristen is comfortable with all clothes. She’s natural in a couture piece, and also jeans.

How involved was Kristen in choosing the clothes?

She gave me direction on the phone before coming to Paris. She tried things on with a friend of hers and said ‘That’s cool’ and ‘that’s not cool.’

Did she get to keep any of the clothes?

Yes, some pieces. Not all of them. She’s not that kind of actress! During the film she said [puts on sweet voice] ‘Oh, don’t forget to give me that sweater…’

What is she like to work with? Is she nice?

Oh yes. Friendly, nice, normal. I’ve worked with some that weren’t like that. I wont give names. Actors and actresses – it’s a strange job. It [makes] you crazy a little bit! You have to be very strong in your head.

Have you seen the film yourself?

Many times. What’s my understanding of it? Well, it’s normal to feel confused. She’s confused. She loves her twin brother and she’s very insecure during the film, that’s why she’s looking for the ghost, the spirit.

What is your top style secret?

Follow what you feel. Do what you want to do, be free.

What one piece of clothing should everyone have in their closet?

A white t-shirt, in proportion to your body, is very important.

Is your industry very LGBTI-friendly?

Cinema isn’t very gay. It’s very macho.

Oh really?

Yes. That was my first surprise when I moved from fashion to cinema. Fashion, we are in ‘our’ world. When one is hetero you think ‘Oh, what’s happening with them?’ But in cinema, the hairdresser and make up people are gay, but all the other ones are not telling. There’s never cruising on set – nobody comes to you and says ‘Hey, what are you doing tonight?’

Are you proud then to see Kristen talking about her sexuality in interviews?

Yes. She does it in a very natural way, in a way I understand. Take it or leave it, no apologies it’s the way I am. It’s very close to a lot of my nieces and young people [I know]. They say ‘I’m with a boy for the moment, and next week I might be with a girl.’ They don’t think about gay or not gay, it’s what they feel.

That’s reflected in fashion too, and in Kristen’s style perhaps – the gender-fluidity…

Yes, of course. I love that. One day she can be very feminine and play the girl and the day after she’s in that boyish way again. It’s all her.

Did you have any crazy nights out with her in Paris?

No, she’s not so ‘crazy’, she’s not the kind of person who wrecks a room at The Ritz! She just enjoys herself, has drinks with all the crew, listens to loud music in the car when we had to move… She’s just…cute! I would love to work with her again.

Have you seen Kristen’s new haircut by the way?

No. What’s that? How’s she looking?

She’s shaved it all off!

No – completely?

Yes, and she’s bleached the little bit of hair she’s got!

No! Does it look strange?

No, she looks lovely!

I’m going to look at this later. I’m curious!

Kristen and Olivier Assayas' interview with the Washington Post

But it would be a mistake the call “Personal Shopper” a ghost story in any literal sense, says Assayas, who sat in on a conference call with his leading lady to correct misimpressions about the new film. Despite the presence of an ectoplasm-spewing poltergeist, “Personal Shopper” is, according to the 62-year-old filmmaker, less an art-house version of “Ghostbusters” than a metaphor for “visibility and invisibility.”

“It’s a story about someone who gradually manages to comes to terms with herself, and to understand her identity and, eventually, even her own femininity,” Assayas says. “I’m using the conventions of genre film because it’s the best way to convey inner fear, inner anxieties and so on and so forth.”

If the title also is a metaphor, it’s an especially apt one. After all, is it not the task of the personal shopper to channel the personality — or at least the tastes — of another individual? In the film, Maureen is shown studying the work of Hilma af Klint, a Swedish painter who claimed that her pioneering abstractions were commissioned by beings from the astral plane, as well as that of the writer Victor Hugo, who believed he could communicate with spirits of famous dead people. Isn’t channeling, in a manner of speaking, what every actor does?

According to Stewart — who says she’s not sure whether she believes in ghosts — the answer is a resounding yes.

“I find it really self-aggrandizing and idiotic for self-proclaimed artists to take an immense amount of credit for their work, in a way that is self-celebratory,” says the 26-year-old actress, who in 2015 became the first American to win a best supporting actress César — the French equivalent of the Oscar — for her performance in “Sils Maria.” “Really, you’ve just been on the receiving end of something that passes through you.

If man cannot judge “Personal Shopper,” he certainly has tried (though the scorecard is, so far, pretty mixed.) An early audience booed the film after a media screening at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Then, the following night, the film’s festival official premiere was met with a five-minute standing ovation.

As an actor, Stewart says, she takes such ups and down in stride, and compares her best work to participating in a kind of seance-like trance. “There’s never been a time when I’ve done a scene and looked around the room and gone, ‘Ooh, we nailed it. We should be so proud of that.’ What you do is you look around and go, ‘Oh, my God, did everyone just feel that? Did everyone feel the same way?’ Once you realize that you did, and that you’ve made this connection, it always feels spiritual. It’s like, ‘Wow, we’re so lucky that we were open enough to let that pass through us.’ ”

Whatever accolades Stewart has received for the film — and more than one critic has called her performance mesmerizing — the actress gives all glory not to God but to Assayas, who says he wrote the part of Maureen, a profoundly lost and troubled soul, specifically for Stewart. “Kristen has such incredible control of what she’s doing,” he says, “at the same time as she’s following complete freedom. It’s a mix that’s extremely uncommon.”

Stewart describes Assayas’s way of filmmaking as arising less from the impulse to tell a preconceived story than out of an interest in asking open questions. “In this case,” she says, “there was the [ghost] subject matter, but, more importantly, there were really pointed questions. But every single person on the crew — every single cast member, myself included, and Olivier — we all had different responses to these questions. Whether our responses to them were the same or not didn’t actually matter. They defined the movie, but didn’t alter our course. What we ultimately discovered was that everything was a revelation, rather than an accomplishment.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with making movies where everything is cut and dried, Stewart says. Ceding complete control to a director can be just as liberating as letting the spirits move you. “I’ve been involved in films where a story sort of preexists and is somewhat finite, and you’ve been hired to function as not much more than a mouthpiece for a filmmaker,” she says. “You feel that control, and it’s not always stultifying, ironically. Sometimes it’s actually really satisfying to hit something hard really hard for someone, and to do it in a way that is controlled by them.”

On the other hand, Stewart says, she has come to realize that her greatest strength now lies in what she once saw as her greatest weakness: that sense of painful awkwardness that comes from being a “naturally shy” introvert. And how exactly did she gain that insight? Only the hard way, she explains: by making bad movies. “Anytime anything was super planned out, or seemed like a great idea on paper and there was nothing that could go wrong with it, it always ended up being trite and empty and embarrassing and so not worthwhile.

“I’m much more comfortable,” she says, “being uncomfortable.”

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