Kristen Stewart: ‘Making the same movie over and over again is horrible and dehumanizing’

Sitting in the reception area of the filthy gym she runs in the middle of the New Mexico desert, Kristen Stewart, 34, seems to dream of a life away from such a painful place. With her mullet haircut and studied scruffiness, she appears on screen for the first time to unclog a toilet. Around her, sweaty bodies submit to the dictatorship of fitness and inject themselves with steroids to obey the dogma that there is no gain without pain. The scene takes place in the United States in the late 1980s, the years of late Reaganism, but it could take place anywhere in the world today.

These are the opening scenes of Love Lies Bleeding, the surprising lesbian noir film that hits theaters on April 12 and stars a Stewart who no longer looks like the one we used to know. Other actresses would have been scared by the violent and excessive material, which includes rough sex, serial murders, doses of pulp fiction and many more doses of body horror. But she was fearless. “I was amused by this sordid nightmare, even if it’s not just that. When I read the script, it seemed to me that it contained many things,” she said in late February in a hotel suite in Berlin, while passing through the German capital for its famous film festival, the Berlinale. “In every interview they ask me: ‘What do you want people to take away after seeing the film?’ I suppose they want me to answer that my projects aspire to change the world, to make us better people. But we don’t make films for that, but rather to ask ourselves questions about who we are, to recognize ourselves in them. I liked that the movie was morally ambiguous. As women, we are always asked to do the right thing. It doesn’t happen to men.”

Stewart plays the daughter of a local mobster (a hair-raising Ed Harris) who senses an escape route to a better future when she meets Jackie, a beautiful bodybuilder played by Katy O’Brian, a former martial arts fighter with the face of Maria Schneider and the body of the Incredible Hulk. Her goal is to reach Las Vegas (the best end of the journey for wandering souls, with all due respect for L.A.) and win a bodybuilding competition that will make her rich and famous. What follows is a tale of bloody revenge peppered with humorous violence and fantastical realism. Produced by A24, the “in” studio right now, the project is a strange artifact within commercial cinema, drawing on B films but nourishing it with messages about the cult of the body, toxic masculinity, and indomitable desire. It is directed by Rose Glass, who debuted in 2020 with Saint Maud, an acclaimed religious and crypto-lesbian horror story. In this case, the director has sprinkled the movie with other references to classics such as Thelma and Louise and Desert Hearts, the queer cult movie of the 1980s, not forgetting Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, although Glass manages to take the result to her own and deeply original terrain.

“In today’s movies everything is a mixture of known quantities from films that have been successful. If there is no equation that guarantees that it will work, it is very difficult to get a budget for it. We work in an industry that wants to make money and that makes it difficult to introduce a bit of novelty, which is what attracts me,” says Stewart. She knows that it is not always in her hands. “I’m just an actress, I’m a hired gun. Finding a bit of risk is not very common. I have done a lot of commercial cinema and I have not enjoyed part of that experience. I don’t want to make films that are just entertainment. Making movies is a lot of fun, but having to make the same movie over and over again is demoralizing, dehumanizing and horrible.” Does that mean that she has only chosen films that scared her? “At first it was like that, I chose only what I found imposing, but I’m getting over it. It’s fun to take risks, but it’s also nice to work on a film and then enjoy the result,” she says with her characteristic smile. “In any case, I realize that my instinct has worked so far, so I plan to keep using it.”

I’m just an actress, I’m a hired gun. I have done a lot of commercial cinema and I have not enjoyed part of that experience. I don’t want to make films that are only entertainment

Bella Swan is already a distant memory. The teenager from the Twilight saga made her an international star 15 years ago (and a persecuted one when her infidelity was revealed; Donald Trump even dedicated eight tweets to her and recommended her partner, Robert Pattinson, leave her). Now it seems like she has built her entire career against that early role, making choices that have made her the undisputed star of America’s most audacious cinema. Since the saga ended in 2012, Stewart has worked with David Cronenberg, Woody Allen, Kelly Reichardt, and Ang Lee. She earned an Oscar nomination for playing Lady Di under Pablo Larraín and won a César Award thanks to Olivier Assayas and Sils Maria, in addition to being one of the few openly gay Hollywood stars, as are some of her roles. Does she hope to make queer cinema one day? The actress, honest but not candid, dodges the bullet: “It’s exciting that they let Rose make this movie.” Stewart checks all the boxes: she embodies the fluidity of the present, the new feminist awakening and the demands of auteur cinema, but she is also a master of the language of social media and understands the importance of impactful images, as demonstrated by her ultra-high-cut body suit in recent photos.

In her latest roles, the difference between actress and character is blurred, as used to happen with the great Hollywood stars of the past. Katharine Hepburn always played a role, but she was also always herself. Just like Bette Davis in the 1940s or Jane Fonda in the 1970s. Or, in her idolized French cinema, actresses like Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche. “That’s a huge compliment,” blushes Stewart, who agrees. “I like there to be continuity between my roles. It’s a particular philosophy that I don’t think many actors follow today. Playing only one character is a way of self-protection, of separating your life and your work, of taking everything with great professionalism,” adds Stewart, using the word in its worst sense, as a synonym for a civil servant attitude. “I believe that you can’t be anyone but yourself. And even if there are stories that enlighten you about aspects that are buried in you and allow you to unearth them, you can only dig in your own sandbox. I feel like when I walk away from myself I’m failing, like the goal is always to dig deeper and deeper until I find something real. Yes, it’s me in all the movies. And all of them are part of me.”

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