I’ll admit to feeling slightly sorry for Kristen Stewart specifically around her Oscar campaign. I’ve covered her interviews throughout her Spencer promotion, and she was and is extremely proud of the film and of the good reviews for her performance. She had mixed feelings about going all-in on a full Oscar campaign blitz, but she was still doing all of the interviews and awkwardly hyping herself and her performance. And then one or two remarks about how Oscar campaigning is “so embarrassing” and suddenly, she was getting snubbed for awards nominations right and left. While I never thought K-Stew should win anything for her portrayal of Princess Diana, I did think she deserved some nominations! She ended up getting an Oscar nomination, so it all worked out in the end. Kristen’s Oscar campaigning interviews are still coming out and she really is trying. She covers Vogue Australia and she was really quite peppy and happy in this piece. Some highlights:
She’s not too cool for school: “I think cool does suggest a sort of, like, level of uninvolvement or something, but I’m so involved. I would do anything for this sh-t. I’m a freewheeling kind of a motherf–ker. I’m a nice guy, I want to make cool movies and I want everyone to have a good time—or have a bad time, and that’s okay. You know what I mean?”
How she felt when she was younger: “I think that, maybe, as a younger person, that intense desire to want everyone to be good, and for me to be able to derive the most that I can out of a given experience was a little debilitating. Because I had a huge barometer for bullsh-t, and I was so unable to deal unless something was feeling true. And a lot of the worlds I was functioning in, they’re quite often very inauthentic, or planned or rehearsed or not very candid. It’s funny—the friction between my kind of energy and that, it seems like I’m the weird one.” She laughs ruefully. “I couldn’t navigate that for a long time. But now I feel like I’ve grown into a buoyancy, and a willingness to have no control over anything. I’m actually now able to reveal myself more truly. I feel like people are seeing me more clearly than they ever have, which is lovely. That’s really nice.”
How she felt playing Diana: “Right before we started shooting, I was debilitatingly nervous… The way that I could protect her, and do the truest version of our art about her, was to just sort of love her.”
Being 31, and Diana-at-30: “I’m the same age as she was at the time when this all kind of shifted. And I’m so impressed with her, because I have lived a life that was really allowed to be open, and she was so stunted. But still, kind of at the same time, [she was] like: ‘Okay, my life is undeniable,’ and she kind of broke through. She just represents freedom and liberation to me, even in the moments when she’s locked inside of herself and inside of this institution.”
How she feels about the monarchy. “I still cannot completely come for the entire idea. It’s a complicated issue.” One that is, for her, embodied in Diana’s two sons. “Diana’s legacy is walking and talking. They’re both very clearly examples of two sides. And I don’t think either is right or wrong … I think that both of those boys function so positively in the world. I see her in them and—it’s funny, it’s a weird word to use—as a fan, as somebody who’s really been obsessively watching [Diana], it’s really nice to see.”
Ultimately, she loved playing Diana: “It was a hard job, but it was so much fun; she’s such a beautiful person to think about. It felt very, very, very good to be her. This imagined skin was something that made me feel amazing. And that was kind of a surprise because her life was, in a nutshell, quite sad, but the joy in the centre of it is why it’s so sad. She had something to fight for that is so spectacular.” So much so, that “by the time we got to the end, I just felt like I was at the top of the tippy-top, tallest staircase I had ever climbed up”.
[From Vogue Australia]
Re: the too cool for school thing… I think she was legitimately cautious about showing too much of her life or allowing people to invade her privacy, but instead of crying about it, she adopted a “f–k you, you can’t have that part of me” attitude, which was actually pretty great. She figured out her own boundaries with fame and the media and she held on to them and good for her. I also appreciate that Kristen has been given ample opportunity to chime in on Harry-vs-William, royal dramas and all of that, and she stays mostly positive and non-committal every time. She’s not trying to promote her movie on the back of the current royal soap opera.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon, Instar, cover courtesy of Vogue Australia.
Source: Read Full Article
