Leading up to its release this weekend, Kristen Stewart gave a press conference for her final Twilight movie. In Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Bella has turned into a vampire and must protect her daughter, Renesmee, from a Volturi inquiry. Readers of Stephenie Meyer’s books already know how this turns out, but that didn’t make it any less emotional to say goodbye to the vampire romance.
Kristen Stewart on vampire Bella…
Kristen Stewart:I was really lucky to have played human Bella for so long. The best aspects of every vampire, all of their gifts, everything that makes them really special, is just an enhanced version of what they were when they were human. So I really did get to play an incredibly well-rounded version of a vampire just because I actually got to take those steps for real. I think that if you were to take the fact that she becomes a vampire completely away, it is just a more realized version of who she’s been the entire time. I think it’s why it really touches so many people, too. It really does represent that stage of life where you’re full, pumping, bubbling over with something maybe you can’t put your finger on. If you’re the type of person in this case, I’m not trying to make a huge thing about the girl thing, but she’s a girl who has faith in herself enough to not ignore those feelings and find out why they’re there. People kind of think she’s nuts the entire time. “Bella’s always losing it. She’s making very odd decisions.” But they’re fully informed by feeling. Now, it all makes sense. She can stand up and go, “I told you! It was worth it! We held on for a reason: It’s really satisfying. It’s a lot of fun. It’s also like breaking her in like a car. How fast does it go? It was fun.
Kristen Stewart on vampire stunts…
I broke my thumb maybe like the first or second day of our really intense, action-y type stuff so that was really frustrating. But, it was fun. I think I got a little taste of it when we were in Italy. The physicality was so important then and it finally became important again. I don’t know. What can I say? I’d been on the sidelines for so long, just itching, going like, “God, I think I could do that pretty well. I think I could do that pretty well. I think those contacts are going to look pretty cool.” I was bursting to do it, which I think is probably why I broke my thumb. I was a little overzealous.
What Kristen Stewart kept from the Twilight set.
The rings. The rings were really important to me. Her mother gives her a moon ring in the beginning. It fully and completely reminds me of Catherine Hardwicke, every time I look at it. Other than that, she’s not really into “stuff.” There aren’t a whole lot of props, so that was probably it. The rings, but those are really, really extremely important to me. I love those things.
Bella is now forever 18. What age would Kristen like to pause at forever…?
I’m not there yet so I’m not sure. I don’t know yet. I can’t wait to get to that point, but I don’t know. Somebody actually recently asked me that and I couldn’t answer them either, so I do apologize. It’s the most boring answer ever. It’s probably pretty telling that I haven’t gotten to that point yet.
What Kristen Stewart got out of Bella’s story…
Without taking any of the truth out of this, it’s so sort of general. It’s about that period where you’re like, “Wait, do I go with this or is that crazy?” I think that ultimately the answer for me is absolutely! You question yourself along the way, constantly, and I don’t think you should ever stop doing that necessarily. You should constantly question everything. Push harder. But I think it just gets a little easier. I don’t know. I definitely feel a little bit more realized. A lot more, actually. Maybe it’s just by chance that we happen to be the same age. It’s a tough one because she lives so many years in such a tiny little period of time, that’s only because of the story so it’s kind of hard to put yourself there completely. But, I think I’ve grown up a little bit. I don’t know.
Kristen Stewart on her post-Twilight career…
A question that I can’t answer is, “What do you want to do next? What is your dream role? What are you really looking into? Where do you see yourself?” It doesn’t make any sense because that’s like such an outsider’s perspective. You’re going, “Why don’t people look at me like this?” Until you see it, what are you responding to? You’re responding to other people’s perspective of you, which is so weird, and why a lot of actors do what they do, and I don’t get that. I think things have fallen in my lap and I’ve gotten incredibly, insanely lucky to get the right feelings and meet people that share them. If I can keep doing that, I’ll be a happy girl. It’s always a pretty impulsive thing because you can read a fantastic script that might not be in you to do. One thing that I don’t think I do is play characters. I find that as soon as you start claiming that you be someone that you’re not, you’re crazy. I think scripts can really surprise you. You go, “Wow, I did not know that I would response to something like that. I did not know that I had that in me.” And so the process of making the movie is just finding that and digging a little deeper. I think that’s why maybe I’ve played parts that are really similar to me because I’m young. I wanted to explore things that were more apparent to me. Now, I’m getting to the point where I want to dig a little deeper. You can shock yourself a little bit with this, and that’s what I would like to do.
Kristen Stewart reviews Breaking Dawn – Part 2…
I actually saw it a while ago and I wish I had a better way of saying this: it’s crazy. It’s so crazy! You typically just don’t get that opportunity to look back. I saw it again recently and I just saw the final cut, and nope, it was a really good thing that no one was around. My favorite thing about [Bill Condon] is that he understood, he really put his finger on what drives this thing. He wasn’t shying away from anything. Not to make it sound not sappy but this thing is romantic. It is what is attractive about it. It is so sort of stirring. I think if anyone was going to try to be cool about it, it just would have been a shame. I think that could have been so easy for so many people to do. Bill lent himself to it so fully, and I think you can see that at the end. You can tell that he’s a huge fan of the story and everything that’s been going down. It’s a nice little knife twist, as well. Like, “Really? It’s over?” I love that thing. I think it’s really great. I love Bill for doing that.
Kristen Stewart on Bella’s maternal instinct…
I think that it might be something that you’re born with or not born with. Some people have really, really strong natural instincts and strong desires to be a mom. It was one of my favorite things about the story from day one, there was never enough about that in the script for me. Luckily, Stephenie [Meyer] has really been heavily involved in this last one, especially. She was on set every single day and it was something that we were really together about. How has it changed me? I don’t think it’s changed much. It was one aspect of her that I was really most excited to play. It feeds into the vampires have slightly more animalistic natures, it was perfect for it. What better way to show that? I have a great relationship with my mom and she can be a bit feral when it comes to being a mom. I think that’s kind of just what it is.
Someone follows up with: Are you ready to have your own kids?
Dude. I can’t wait to be a mom, but I can wait.
Kristen Stewart on the bonds she’s formed with Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner…
It’s nice to not be alone in that, I guess. But there are a lot of people that are exceedingly famous, and I guess we share the movies. Another really common question is, “How is it going to be to walk away from this?” I genuinely feel like I don’t have to walk anywhere. That’s what I love about this job is that you hold these things. I wouldn’t have done it in the first place unless it was something that I was going to always carry, and I think they feel the same way. They tell me they do. In terms of having that one person that understands what it’s like, they’re are a lot of exceeding famous people and they all get it.
Kristen Stewart on the end of it all…
I’m so happy that the story is told. You have no idea. Usually, you’ve got five weeks or five months to look at a schedule and go, “That day is coming up. Now that day is coming up.” We had five years. The fact that this thing is out and it’s not weighing on us anymore, I’m super excited about that. But I don’t want it to sound like I’m excited just to be done with the experience because to be honest it’s such a particular tone. You do reshoots, conversations with past directors, it just falls right back into that. It’s a feeling and I will definitely miss that, but again I feel like it’s not going anywhere. Anytime something’s brought up or you see someone… I mean, it is sad. It is strange, but it’s normal. Things shouldn’t stay stagnant. You’ve got to move on.
Would Kristen Stewart sign onto another film series…?
Yeah. It depends. It’s hard to sign on to something before you know what it’s going to be. My guess is that probably not. I think it’s just really rare to find something that lends itself to that. I would also probably want to know where it was going. I don’t know. I’ve never really been a huge fan of any comic book. As of now, probably not, but never say never.
Someone asks Kristen what she would give Bella for Christmas…
Oh, Bella, what do you want for Christmas, girl? I don’t know. What do I want to give her for Christmas? I don’t know. She’s not that into stuff. In fact, she hates presents so I would mail her something.
Kristen Stewart on super vampire running…
I would love to be able to run that fast. That would be fun. We were really able to get close to most experiences that she had. We always wanted to push it as far as we could. But then when I was standing on the treadmill, being drug behind a truck in the woods and I know that this isn’t even going to make it in the movie because it’s fairly ridiculous. Honestly, that’s one of my favorite parts of the entire series is that first hunt.
Follow Fred Topel on Twitter at @FredTopel.
