{"id":18259,"date":"2026-01-26T05:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T05:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=18259"},"modified":"2026-01-26T05:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T05:13:11","slug":"now-people-talk-to-me-like-i-have-a-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=18259","title":{"rendered":"Now people talk to me like I have a brain"},"content":{"rendered":"


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K<\/span>risten Stewart is telling me how she has learnt to keep her cool. \u201cI was talking to a male actor I really love,\u201d she begins. \u201cAnd I said there are no female Method actors because Method acting is an acrobatic performance to make acting seem like a feat that it is not. I think acting is just playing pretend; you don\u2019t have to do 50 press-ups before a take. As soon as I made the distinction between male and female actors, he became defensive and said he had never met an actress that wasn\u2019t crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart shrugs and pulls a sceptical face. \u201cA couple of years ago a comment like that would have made me turn red in the face, my ears would have started steaming and I would have seemed exactly like what he wanted me to seem like \u2014 an angry woman. Instead I just continued and got to the end of my thought. Getting older is great because you can achieve a calm,\u201d she says proudly. She speaks in long sentences, barely pausing for breath.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stewart at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival last year<\/p>\n

DIA DIPASUPIL\/GETTY IMAGES FOR SCAD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

At 35, Stewart, dressed in matching black leather trousers and a boxy black leather shirt, has spent years reinventing herself. She\u2019s hardly old, but then she started acting as a nine-year-old, growing up in Los Angeles and getting her first big role at 12, playing Jodie Foster\u2019s daughter in Panic Room<\/i>. <\/p>\n

By 18 she was a global megastar thanks to her role in the Twilight <\/i>saga, which brought in nearly $3.4 billion at the box office worldwide and dominated her life for five films (she also went out with her co-star Robert Pattinson, which brought her even more attention). She has said that being so famous so young meant that she \u201cdidn\u2019t have a fully lived life\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\"Robert<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, 2011<\/p>\n

HANDOUT<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After four years playing Twilight<\/i>\u2019s agonised Bella Swan, however, her career took an unexpected turn. She went from tween idol to arthouse star, the first American woman to have won a C\u00e9sar, the French equivalent of the Oscars, for her 2014 film Clouds of Sils Maria<\/i>. In the psychological drama she held her own as a young woman who has a difficult relationship with her boss, an actress, played by Juliette Binoche. She was also nominated for a best actress Oscar for playing Princess Diana in the claustrophobic Spencer <\/i>in 2022, a noirish, often surreal look at the Princess of Wales.<\/p>\n

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\"Kristen<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As Princess Diana in Spencer<\/p>\n

PABLO LARRAIN\/NEON VIA AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Her personal life has taken twists and turns too. In 2012, when she was going out with Pattinson, she had an affair with the married Snow White and the Huntsman <\/i>director, Rupert Sanders. He apologised, but Stewart was chastised by none other than the thrice-married Donald Trump, who posted a string of tweets about how \u201cRobert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again \u2014 just watch. He can do much better!\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2013, she came out as bisexual and last April she married the screenwriter and producer Dylan Meyer. Now she is forging another new path, as a director. Her feature film debut, The Chronology of Water<\/i>, comes out next month.<\/p>\n

When I arrive for our interview in a Soho members\u2019 club, she is clowning around with the film\u2019s star, Imogen Poots. \u201cYou remind me of Just William<\/i>,\u201d Poots tells Stewart, who laughs delightedly \u2014 then asks who he is. Once Poots heads off, Stewart turns more serious and spiky, getting fired up as she talks about her moody, off-beat film.<\/p>\n

Based on a 2011 memoir by the American writer Lidia Yuknavitch, it\u2019s about a young woman, Lidia (Poots), whose father (Michael Epp) sexually abuses her and her older sister (Thora Birch). Lidia copes by throwing herself into competitive swimming, but she has a dark secret \u2014 she has sexual fantasies while thinking about the abuse \u2014 and loathes her boyfriend (Earl Cave) because he is nice to her.<\/p>\n

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\"Kristen<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With her wife, Dylan Meyer<\/p>\n

MICHAEL KOVAC\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The New Yorker gave it a rave review, saying it \u201cpacks great emotional power into its boldly original form\u201d, leaping around with flashbacks shot on Super-8 film. It\u2019s certainly not your typical Hollywood production and I can see why it took Stewart eight years to get funding to make it (eventually Scott Free Productions, a company founded by Tony and Ridley Scott, backed it). <\/p>\n

As well as being shot in a way that she says \u201cfeels like a DMT [psychedelic drug] trip\u201d, it\u2019s provocative and uncomfortably graphic, showing masturbation, ejaculation and birth. Even Stewart admits that \u201cthe movie feels like it\u2019s barely dragging itself over the finish line, and I really love that about it. It feels a little bit adolescent.\u201d <\/p>\n

She sounds like she relishes a challenge, adding that \u201cso many people said this was an impossible movie, but maybe it won\u2019t be so hard to get funding next time because me and Imogen proved something\u201d. <\/p>\n

Would it have been easier to get the money if she were a man? \u201cIf I was a man I wouldn\u2019t have made this movie.\u201d She was drawn to the story because it shows the taboo side of being a woman. \u201cWe have to deny our physicality every single day and there is so much \u2014 like birth \u2014 that is so painful and also quite beautiful, but we don\u2019t share it because it is uncomfortable and icky,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been pushed out of the canon in terms of expression. I wanted to speak to a world designed to silence women. We have to push people out of the way to get our experience seen and that pisses people off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Chronology of Water review \u2014 Imogen Poots saves Kristen Stewart\u2019s movie<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

I wonder where her feminist fury comes from. I expect her to talk about being in the public eye from a young age, but her answer goes back to family. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m a little sister. I have a bunch of brothers, it\u2019s\u2026 f***ing hell.\u201d Stewart\u2019s father is a stage manager and her mother is a script supervisor; the couple adopted two boys as well having Stewart and her older brother.<\/p>\n

Directing has been liberating. \u201cActresses get treated like shit, I\u2019ve got to tell you,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople think anyone could be an actress, but the first time I sat down to talk about my movie as a director, I thought, wow, this is a different experience, they are talking to me like I\u2019m somebody with a brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this idea that directors have otherworldly abilities, which is not true. It\u2019s an idea perpetuated by men. Not to sound like I\u2019m complaining all the time, but it\u2019s worse for female actors than male ones \u2014 they get treated like puppets, but they are not. Imogen put her whole body and soul into this movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

She admits that she is intense. \u201cFilm is 100 per cent all-consuming. I was a maniac on this movie,\u201d she says. \u201cI barely existed outside of it, but I\u2019ve never felt more alive.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Directing Imogen Poots in The Chronology of Water<\/p>\n

ANDREJS STROKINS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ideally she wants people to watch the film in the cinema and seems upset to hear that I had to watch it on a laptop, which is fair enough given that she spent eight years getting it made. \u201cThe sonic experience is immense,\u201d she says. When I say it\u2019s a hard watch, she tells me: \u201cI prefer the extreme. I don\u2019t want to be neutralised by a tepid, measured life. If you know what it feels like to lose a lot, gaining is all the more satisfying and beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stewart is political and has said she wants her films to be too. When we\u2019re talking about how the film shows a female point of view, she says this matters as a point of record. \u201cLook at Mary Wollstonecraft, [the artist] Hilma af Klint \u2014 we only recently understood she came before Kandinsky. History really matters. It tells you you are either allowed to be here or not. The rewriting of history is happening because equality is becoming closer to a reality.\u201d <\/p>\n

She\u2019s outspoken about Trump and not just because of their history with his tweets about her. The Chronology of Water<\/i> was shot in Latvia because \u201cit would have been impossible to do in the States\u201d. She is withering about Trump\u2019s threat of tariffs on films made outside the US, even though they appear to have stalled, and has said they are \u201cterrifying\u201d for the film industry. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews,<\/b> guides about what to watch and interviews<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cReality is breaking completely under Trump,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we should take a page out of his book and create the reality we want to live in.\u201d She lives in Los Angeles and New York \u2014 does she think she will stay in the US? \u201cProbably not. I can\u2019t work freely there. But I don\u2019t want to give up completely. I\u2019d like to make movies in Europe and then shove them down the throat of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having been in the industry since she was a child means she sees the world in cinematic terms: \u201cIt\u2019s how I relate to the world. I\u2019m always going, \u2018How are we going to make that into a movie?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

She is glad that she has worked since she was a child, after an agent saw her singing in a school Christmas show. Her father and mother warned her that it would be \u201chell\u201d, but she was determined. \u201cIt beats school,\u201d she says. And despite going down a more arthouse route, she isn\u2019t snobby about Twilight<\/i> and has even said that she would be open to directing another Twilight <\/i>film. But it\u2019s taken her a while to \u201cnot feel like I have to do everything perfectly and not feel like I need to satisfy others \u2014 not needing to have everyone love me. I love being a good student, a good girl.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her perfectionism means she thinks she has \u201cprobably only been in five movies that were top-to-bottom incredible\u201d from a career of nearly 50 films. \u201cBut everything I\u2019ve worked on did need to exist, in all its imperfections.\u201d She isn\u2019t giving up on acting, but seems more excited about directing at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I had to put myself on a leash around the actors to let them do their own thing. One thing I\u2019ve learnt from my favourite directors is that they know how to light a fire, but then they know how to get out of the way.\u201d
The Chronology of Water<\/i><\/b> is in cinemas from Feb 6<\/b><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite Kristen Stewart role? Let us know in the comments below<\/i><\/p>\n

Four actresses turned directors<\/h2>\n

Kate Winslet<\/h3>\n

The Oscar-winning actress may have got her first acting job in her teens, but it wasn\u2019t until she\u2019d almost hit 50 that she decided to get behind the camera with Goodbye June<\/b> (Netflix), a family film inspired by the death of her mother and written by her son Joe Anders. <\/p>\n

Scarlett Johansson<\/h3>\n

One of Hollywood\u2019s highest-grossing actresses said she had wanted to direct since she appeared in Robert Redford\u2019s 1998 film The Horse Whisperer<\/i> aged 12. Her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great <\/b>(buy\/rent), premiered at last year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival and tells the story of a woman who pretends to be a Holocaust survivor to find purpose in later life.<\/p>\n

Olivia Wilde<\/h3>\n

Wilde\u2019s acting career was largely defined by roles in middling television series and films. It was her move behind the camera that transformed her profile: the sharp coming-of-age comedy Booksmart <\/b>(Netflix) and the controversial drama Don\u2019t Worry Darling<\/b> (buy\/rent), starring her former flame Harry Styles. <\/p>\n

Greta Gerwig<\/h3>\n

The Barbie<\/i> director was rejected for every one of her applications for playwriting courses in the early 2000s. She stumbled into acting instead and collaborating with others, including her husband, Noah Baumbach. Her first solo directorial film was Lady Bird<\/b> (buy\/rent), an impressive coming-of-age story starring Saoirse Ronan. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Kristen Stewart is telling me how she has learnt to keep her cool. \u201cI was talking to a male actor I really love,\u201d she begins. \u201cAnd I said there are no female Method actors because Method acting is an acrobatic performance to make acting seem like a feat that it is not. I think acting … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Now-people-talk-to-me-like-I-have-a-brain.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18261,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18259\/revisions\/18261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}