UK Telegraph: Kristen Stewart on the Runaways and Twilight

Hard to believe but The Runaways has only just hit over in the UK.  It goes to show how frequently the production companies and US distributors have no real control as far as making sure things come out on similar dates overseas. Kristen Stewart recently did some UK press and mentions Twilight. (photo credit: Tina Gill)

“It’s tough being Kristen Stewart. Her performance as the indecisive, lip-biting heroine, Bella Swan, in the Twilight films has seen the 20-year-old American actress emerge as a rather reluctant poster-girl for 21st-century teenage angst.

She has lived out much of her teens under the media spotlight: she had just turned 17 when she made the first Twilight film and, on its release, became an overnight sensation.

Meanwhile, Stewart’s on-screen (and off-screen) relationship with her co-star Robert Pattinson has turned her into a regular on the covers of gossip magazines.

It’s not surprising that she has struggled to cope with the media attention, and her discomfort when dealing with interviewers has opened her up to accusations of being surly and defensive. I have not found her so on the previous occasions we have spoken.

She can be unnervingly silent – she thinks carefully about each question and often has many stabs at a reply before settling on a finished sentence – but she is intelligent and engaging. In truth, like many women her age, she’s probably just a little bit embarrassed.

‘I am quite shy and people think I’m aloof,’ she explains, sitting opposite me in a suite at a sumptuous Beverly Hills hotel.

‘I get that all the time: “She should not be in this position because she can’t handle it,” and, “She is stuck up and doesn’t want to talk to anybody. She is miserable, and if you are so miserable stop doing it.”

But do you have a choice? I want to be an actor, I am just not very comfortable talking about myself.

‘When I did the first Twilight movie they were like, “Now you have to go and do media training,” and I was, “Screw you! Do you think you are going to wrap up all my little insecurities and throw them out the window?

Do you think you are going to put soundbites in my mouth? I’ll do your course, but that’s not going to happen.’

And she is, indeed, refreshingly soundbite-free and unashamed of her insecurities.”

Read the rest on the UK Telegraph. The reporter’s opinion of Kristen very much mirrors what our own personal experience has been with her since 2008, she’s somewhat awkward, but one-on-one she’s great, she cares about fans and getting it right,  thinks about her answers before speaking resulting in pauses you could drive a truck through, and is refreshingly honest (after the excruciating pause)not just coming out with the same old studio programmed line.