Having started acting at nine years old, Kristen Stewart has had to grow up in the public eye. That could give anyone anxiety, but the pressures placed on young women in particular can absolutely add to pile.
In a new profile for The New York Times, Stewart shows just how much she’s grown by addressing her own anxiety, fame, acting, and relationships. It’s a sparse interview — even while she’s revealing personal feelings she still guards herself, which is to be expected when the public has so many expectations and demands placed on one woman.
Stewart has a number of films coming up, including Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women,” and Olivier Assayas “Personal Shopper,” which will both play at New York Film Festival, plus Ang Lee’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” all of which the Times describes as being a part of Stewart’s toggling “between major studio movies and smart, acclaimed work with masterful directors.” There’s also the announced Lizzie Borden film she’ll act in with Chloe Sevigny, and she’ll make her directorial debut with a short film currently titled “Water” for Refinery 29’s Shatterbox Anthology.
Highlights from the interview that we think epitomize Stewart’s growing comfort with herself are presented below. To read the entire profile, head over to The New York Times.
On her “debilitating physical anxiety.”
Stewart told the Times that her anxiety, “is no longer negative or fear-based. I do think that’s because of the storms I have weathered. It’s not that they make you stronger or calloused — but they do make you a human.”
The contradiction of being an actress.
“I’m not the typical showman. But at the same time, I want so badly to expose myself. I want to be understood and I want to be seen, and I want to do that in the rawest, purest, most naked way I can.”
Her relationship with Robert Pattinson was a product.
“People wanted me and Rob to be together so badly that our relationship was made into a product. It wasn’t real life anymore. And that was gross to me. It’s not that I want to hide who I am or hide anything I’m doing in my life. It’s that I don’t want to become a part of a story for entertainment value.”
On her relationship with visual-effects producer Alicia Cargile.
“I would never talk about any of my relationships before, but once I started dating girls it seemed like there was an opportunity to represent something really positive,” she says. “I still want to protect my personal life, but I don’t want to seem like I’m protecting the idea, so that does sort of feel like I owe something to people.”
The acting process, in her words.
“Stewart describes the process at different times as ‘harnessing a fluid,’ ‘tapping into a magic world’ and ‘finding a portal.’ It is, for her, an ‘explorative, meditative, moving, beautiful, transcendent experience that brings us all closer.’”
