What is Kristen Stewart’s superpower? Owning her authentic self, no matter what anyone thinks. After her start as a child actress and explosive success with her role in the Twilight franchise, Stewart has had a long road in Hollywood, enjoying her fair share of criticism – and praise – for her performances and offscreen choices. But she managed to endure beyond teenage popularity to land prestigious roles in indie films, an Oscar nomination and a huge cohort of fans who deeply admire her both as a performer and a person. Kristen Stewart became an icon through her independence, non-conformity, and above all, her authenticity.
Transcript
What is Kristen Stewart’s superpower? Owning her authentic self, no matter what anyone thinks. After her start as a child actress and explosive success with her role in the Twilight franchise, Stewart has had a long road in Hollywood, enjoying her fair share of criticism – and praise – for her performances and offscreen choices. But she managed to endure beyond teenage popularity to land prestigious roles in indie films, an Oscar nomination and a huge cohort of fans who deeply admire her both as a performer and a person. And she did that by always finding a way to let her real self shine through and not bow to others’ expectations. Here’s our Take on how Kristen Stewart became an icon through her independence, non-conformity, and above all, her authenticity.
“Anytime I start talking about movies or acting it starts to become sort of synonymous with just existential life conversations.”
- Kristen Stewart
CHAPTER 1: A KRISTEN STEWART CHARACTER IS…
One thing that unites all Kristen Stewart characters is the feeling of genuineness. Stewart tends to choose characters with whom she has an instinctual connection, lending her performance an undeniable sincerity. One of her earliest roles in the film Panic Room as a child diabetic was praised for how believable her performance was, especially for such a young actor.
A few years later, she played Tracy in the film Into The Wild, a performance which also demonstrated her grounded, laid-back appeal. But it wasn’t until Stewart was cast as Bella Swan in Twilight that her fame exploded. The Twilight series, which already had a massive following from the popular book series, catapulted Stewart to stardom. Part of the reason why Stewart was chosen to play Bella was due to this same authentic quality, a trait which Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke immediately noticed. As Hardwicke told The New Yorker,
“She’s got to be Bella, because she keeps it so grounded and so real. I built the whole film around her.”
“The best experiences that I’ve had on any project of any kind has been when you are naturally and instinctively drawn to a person.”
- Kristen Stewart
A Kristen Stewart character also often feels rebellious. While some people didn’t fully appreciate Stewart’s sulky, awkward portrayal of Bella upon the film’s release, in more recent years, her performance has been praised for an accurate depiction of teenage angst and rebellion.
Stewart reinforced this rebellious image through characters like civil rights activist Jean Seberg in Seberg and singer Joan Jett in The Runaways. Offscreen, too, Stewart has never seemed overly concerned with people-pleasing. And many of her roles embody a marked difference from plenty of bubbly, outgoing, and extroverted female actors and teenage leads. And a Stewart character is also – like the actress herself – often introverted or introspective. She brings an emotional sensitivity or sometimes fragility to even her harder or stronger-seeming characters.
Stewart’s tendency to not play by everyone’s rules hasn’t always been appreciated by everyone - and her process of finding herself as a person who became famous at a young age has had messy moments. Shortly after the release of Snow White and the Huntsman in 2012, Stewart was caught up in a scandal when she was photographed kissing director Rupert Sanders.
At the time, Stewart was dating Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, while Sanders was married to actress Liberty Ross - and since Stewart and Pattinson’s relationship was so popular at the time, the press had a field day shaming Stewart for the “cheating scandal”.
But after both the scandal and the end of the Twilight series, Stewart was free to explore smaller, independent roles. And Twilight’s commercial success allowed her to pursue roles that genuinely interested her without worrying about box office outcomes. Films like Still Alice, Certain Women, Clouds of Sils Maria, and Personal Shopper highlighted and challenged her acting abilities beyond what she achieved in earlier franchise films. And Stewart’s personal style evolved parallel to this career transition: Her public personality and fashion sense since the Twilight franchise has been notably nonconformist and independent, traits which are mirrored in many of her more recent characters. Her character Sabina in the reboot of Charlie’s Angels, for example, swaps wigs and disguises effortlessly to weaponize her sexuality, but underneath it all rocks an androgynous haircut similar to the one Stewart regularly wears in her daily life.
“I was at that point allowed to pick weird things that nobody believed in because I made a big movie once.”
- Kristen Stewart
CHAPTER 2: LIVING AUTHENTICALLY
Stewart’s nonconformist persona has represented her evolution in living authentically off screen. During the Twilight movies, Stewart’s public choices largely conformed to what we expect from a female teenage lead in a young adult franchise. When Stewart dated her co-star Robert Pattinson, this was a dream come true for Twilight fans, and it echoed others onscreen couples from big franchises who pursued offscreen romances before and since. So when Stewart’s affair with Rupert Sanders was exposed, she was vilified in the tabloids for cheating on Pattinson.
But as Stewart has spent more time in the public eye, she has also been able to feel more comfortable not fitting into a formulaic model of what audiences expect a female actor to be. Reflecting on her experience with Sanders more recently, Stewart told Howard Stern,
“We lived in a different time then, the slut-shaming that went down was so absurd.”
Throughout her life, Stewart has been very private about her romantic life – including her relationship with Pattinson. But since the Twilight series concluded, she has been more open about her sexuality and has largely dated and been photographed with women, and in 2021 she became engaged to screenwriter Dylan Meyer. She acknowledged to Women Wear Daily that her life in the public eye actually compelled her to be more recognize her true self:
“It’s kind of nice to be uncomfortable in public because it really forces you to be confrontational with your most inner self, and you’re not allowed to ignore who you are.”
Stewart’s growing comfort in herself and her sexuality has been paralleled by a greater freedom in the way she presents herself. In recent years, she has experimented with a number of different hairstyles and makeup looks, and her red carpet outfits have played with androgynous or masculine silhouettes. And her appearance onscreen has mirrored this transformation: While many of her earlier roles showcased a more traditional femininity her characters have increasingly provided an alternate form of feminine beauty. Similarly, some of the roles she has taken in recent years explore lesbian and female-driven relationships onscreen.
Though both Stewart’s personal style and her openness surrounding her sexuality have pushed back against the image we have of young female stars, she has also been candid about the struggles she faced spending so much time in the public eye from such a young age. In particular, Stewart faced resistance from people around her to hide her sexuality to protect her career, which was so firmly rooted in a heterosexual romantic role. And when her sexuality did come out into the open, she experienced increasing pressure to narrowly define and label herself.
Role models and queer icons like Stewart, who have been willing and able to take those steps to express their sexuality publicly, have paved the way for other actors to do so even earlier in their careers. And as evidenced by the critical acclaim Stewart has achieved in recent years, living authentically offscreen has garnered her the most success.
“The fervent question that was demanded of me for so long is now ridiculous.”
- Kristen Stewart
CHAPTER 3: THE MEANING OF PRESTIGE
So how did Kristen Stewart transform a career built on teenage fandom into one of prestige and critical acclaim? Part of her recent success comes from the freedom she achieved through starring in such a commercially successful franchise, as her financial security meant that she could pursue roles in more offbeat, independent films. Stewart has also spoken to how being pigeonholed after Twilight actually motivated her to try new and different things. As she told the New Yorker, “Did you think I was going to do ‘Twilight’ forever? Is that how you saw me? If that’s how you saw me, then you really set me up for success, because I can do way more than that.”
Clouds of Sils Maria was partially financed by Chanel, which helped launch Stewart into the designer fashion landscape. After this collaboration, Stewart became a face for Chanel. But she has used this position to continue to take risks with her style, a method which she says has been encouraged by the fashion house.
In 2022, Stewart landed her first-ever Oscar nomination for her role as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s film Spencer, cementing her reputation as a critically acclaimed actor. Stewart’s costar Robert Pattinson similarly made this transition from teen idol to prestige actor after the Twilight series, starring in a number of independent films like Good Time and The Lighthouse which earned him critical praise. However, it’s rare to pull off this transition as well as Stewart and Pattinson have, and it’s even rarer for a female actor to successfully make this jump.
Stewart has followed her intuition in recent years to roles which personally interest and challenge her.
“I’ve never played something where I’ve not understood the person.”
- Kristen Stewart
While starring in Twilight may not have exactly fit with her style and goals for her long-term career, Stewart strategically used the commercial success she gained from that franchise to give her greater freedom in future career decisions. Additionally, it’s partially because of her PR missteps early on in her career that she’s been able to become more comfortable revealing her authentic self and not stressing if everyone approves. She’s lived through her share of embarrassing moments: like her 2010 BAFTA speech that went viral for how nervous and anxious she appeared , or her 2015 Cesar speech where she also came off awkwardly, and tried to speak french. But Stewart has acknowledged the pressure to have a voice as a public person, and just admitting that makes her feel more human. Ultimately, this commitment to authenticity over the long-term – both on- and offscreen – is what has made her into an icon.
CONCLUSION
Though Kristen Stewart’s career path is obviously far different from the average person’s, her story provides an important lesson in how being true to yourself pays off. While her truest and most open self wasn’t accepted at first – especially when it came to her sexuality – we can see how the more authentic Stewart has been over the years, the more her critical and personal success has grown. Aside from providing us with excellent entertainment across a variety of genres, Stewart’s career proves that we shouldn’t be deterred by the people who don’t get us – because eventually, the right people will see the value and the power in our most authentic selves.
“Art is solace because it comes through you.”
- Kristen Stewart