Just as every studio head on Monday morning was surely ordering their underlings to go find the next Fifty Shades Of Grey, the same happened when it became clear that Twilight was going to be a phenomenon. We’ve already seen three YA series step up to capture that audience (The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner) while others have failed (Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments) and while the young leads in all the franchises have diversified their resumes, because they were first, the actors of Twilight have unfairly had a harder time shaking whatever stigma has been attached to them for their work in the vampire saga. But Kristen Stewart has no time for the haters.
Chatting with Patti Smith in Interview, the legendary musician gets things rolling by bringing some good context when addressing Stewart’s efforts in the Twilight saga movies.
“I loved your work in those films. I thought the commitment of everyone in those films was true. Like The Hunger Games—if you accept the world that you’re entering, and if the people deliver that world, that’s what we’re looking for,” Smith said.
…it was a long process, so it’s hard to generalize about it as a whole. It wasn’t entirely cohesive. We ebbed and flowed. I will definitely acknowledge that,” Stewart responded. “But the intention is so fucking pure in a weird way. Anybody who wants to talk shit about ‘Twilight,’ I completely get it, but there’s something there that I’m endlessly, and to this day, fucking proud of. My memory of it felt—still feels—really good.”
And for the actress, the film is part of the continuum of her career.
“Every movie that I’ve done, they don’t stand independently from one another because a little bit of me is in every single one of those, and it’s part of my own personal growth. I don’t think that there’s much hiding that actors can do,” she explained. “If you’re doing good work, you’re showing a part of yourself to someone, so I can’t say that ‘Twilight’ doesn’t have anything to do with Still Alice and Sils Maria. They have everything to do with each other. They are who I am.”
Smith has nothing but praise and admiration for Stewart and the art of acting in general.
“…I would say that of all the arts, acting is the most grueling, thankless. Never apologize for your work. If people don’t accept the ‘Twilight’ series for what it is, well, fuck them,” she states. “Millions of people loved that series. It gave them something. It said something about love and honor. And acting is a really hard job. It’s not a romantic job. I’ve watched the hours in makeup, hours sitting around waiting for the lights, or because you lose your light, or it starts to rain, or whatever. And you feel like shit or you have a migraine, but you have to do it, 12, 13 hours a day.”
“What will remain 20, 30 years from now—all those people and their snarky comments and their projections will be forgotten—but if your work continues to grow and you do great work, that’s what will be remembered,” Smith added. “It’s all about work in the end. And you’re not a bit behind. You have learned a lot of technical things, a lot of disciplines. And you can apply everything that you’ve learned from one genre into another.”
From one legend to an actress with a long, promising road ahead…be sure to read the their talk in full right here.
