Kristen Stewart Wants to Show Us a Different Kind of Sex

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Interview

Episode: Kristen Stewart Wants to Show Us a Different Kind of Sex
Date: December 6, 2025
Host: David Marchese (The New York Times)

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Overview

This episode features a candid and exploratory conversation between David Marchese and actor/director Kristen Stewart. The main theme is Stewart’s transition from Hollywood star to indie film director, focusing on her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water—an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir. The conversation navigates womanhood, vulnerability, the nature of selfhood, sex on screen, the challenges of filmmaking, and personal introspection. Stewart’s reflections are unfiltered, often humorous, and self-examining, with both discussion and banter. The episode is split across two conversations—a main interview and a follow-up after Stewart’s film screening in Poland.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation Behind Adapting The Chronology of Water

[02:27 – 03:44]

• Stewart was drawn not just to the events in Yuknavitch’s memoir, but to how Yuknavitch told her story—its invitation to "excavate your own memories."
  • “It was the way that she told it—it was the fact of the telling.” —Kristen Stewart [02:54]
• Stewart emphasizes that diaristic writing by women is often dismissed as "selfish," a theme she wished to celebrate rather than avoid.

2. Universality, Specificity, and the Female Experience

[04:09 – 06:31]

• Stewart resists overly concretizing the film’s themes, focusing instead on how its specificity enables audience identification, especially for women.
  • “If you pick this woman apart, you’re not giving her a chance to be as genius as she is.” —Kristen Stewart [06:06]
• She links discomfort with the film’s themes to cultural unease about women speaking openly about their bodily experiences.

3. The Difficulties of Getting the Film Made

[06:52 – 08:19]

• Stewart describes a protracted, nearly 10-year journey to direct the film, noting challenges such as lack of a traditional narrative structure and its unpalatable subject matter.
  • “I was lucky to be allowed to make this movie at all. I had to do a lot of kicking and screaming.” —Kristen Stewart [07:10]
• The film’s unfiltered depiction of sexuality and trauma was a barrier for financing.

4. Abandon vs. Control, and Living in the Public Eye

[08:19 – 10:19]

• Stewart claims she does not self-censor, finding authenticity more valuable than calculation, and frames public embarrassment as humbling and freeing.
  • “A nice healthy amount of humiliation is really humbling.” —Kristen Stewart [09:52]

5. The Public Persona and Loss of Control

[10:22 – 13:42]

• Stewart discusses becoming a "character" constructed by the media/tabloids, and the futility of controlling public perception.
  • “Who you think you are has nothing to do with what other people think you are... No one’s wrong.” —Kristen Stewart [13:07 – 13:31]
• Embracing relinquishment of control is key to her sanity.

6. Hollywood’s Gendered Double Standards

[14:10 – 19:08]

• Via a Marlon Brando anecdote, Stewart criticizes how male actors are praised for artistic idiosyncrasies ("method" bravado), while such behavior in women is dismissed as "crazy."
  • “Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine... there’s no bravado in suggesting you’re a mouthpiece for someone else’s ideas... Men are aggrandized for retaining self.” —Kristen Stewart [15:39 – 16:23]
• Calling out misogynistic attitudes on film sets, she underscores different cultural expectations for male and female actors.

7. Studio Movies vs. Independent Filmmaking

[19:19 – 24:01]

• Stewart openly rejects the "committee process" of blockbuster filmmaking in favor of creative singularity.
  • “A movie comes from someone’s singularity in their perspective and their soul... I don’t feel the need to feed the machine anymore.” —Kristen Stewart [20:40 – 21:13]
• Citing demoralizing test screenings and meddling executives, she describes the studio environment as inhospitable and often misogynistic.

8. The Impact of Early Success and Financial Freedom

[24:01 – 25:43]

• Stewart acknowledges her own financial privilege after Twilight’s success, which allowed her to make riskier creative choices.
  • “I know for a fact I would be able to make myself happy artistically without [money]... that’s the setup that’s the most cohesive to a beautiful life.” —Kristen Stewart [24:59]
• She remains conscious of sharing her good fortune and not letting financial comfort dull her artistic drive.

9. The Case for “Breaking the System” in Film

[25:43 – 29:12]

• Stewart advocates for new models in film financing and distribution, decrying the capitalist barriers that silence marginalized voices and experimental work.
  • “The system has barred people and made it too, too difficult. To be honest.” —Kristen Stewart [26:15 – 27:26]
• She fantasizes about making a powerful, personal, zero-budget film as a challenge to industry norms.

10. Pop Criticism: Barbie and Cultural Contradictions

[29:21 – 31:29]

• Stewart and Marchese discuss Barbie (2023), with Marchese pointing out that subversive critique can also serve as advertisement for the thing critiqued.
  • “At the same time, you see a big poster for that Margot Robbie’s on, and you’re like, oh my God, that is the picture of beauty.” —Kristen Stewart [30:39]
• Stewart admires the subversive success of the film, especially Gerwig’s creative latitude.

11. Reflection and Self-Knowledge

[32:10 – 34:28, 36:44 – 40:13]

• At the close, Marchese asks Stewart, “What is it you don’t want to know about yourself?” (from Adam Phillips’ The Life You Want).
  • Stewart’s first instinct is to interrogate her own selfishness and capacity for care.
  • “I hope I’m not just like an egomaniac monster... do I actually care?” —Kristen Stewart [33:49 – 34:18]
• A follow-up segment includes both interviewer and Stewart sharing their own insecurities (Marchese: artistic courage and self-image; Stewart: wishing she didn’t sometimes make people feel awkward).

12. Queer Sexuality and Honest Sex Scenes

[40:23 – 44:32]

• Stewart recommends Barbara Hammer’s Multiple Orgasm and discusses sexual honesty in art.
  • “I love watching things that don’t feel performative, that do feel inhabited and kind of instinctive... I never really again want to stand in a room and watch two people fucking, I’m just, like, my whole life, you know, that’s just our whole lives.” —Kristen Stewart [43:05 – 44:15]
• Stewart critiques the external, often performative and male-gaze oriented depiction of sex, expressing a desire for more truthful, embodied, and less “titillating” portrayals.

13. Creativity, Drugs, and Self-Soothing

[45:13 – 47:33]

• Stewart comments on the romanticization of drugs/alcohol and artistic inspiration.
  • “I work best in the morning, completely clear headed. I romanticize so much like Bukowski sitting there with a big old bottle of wine and like writing his best poems. I do not have that.” —Kristen Stewart [46:11]
• For her, substance use is social rather than creative; she values clarity for artistic work.

14. Final Reflections & Takeaway

[47:44 – 49:07]

• Stewart demurs from offering a neat encapsulation or life lesson, instead urging listeners to engage with her work directly:
  • “If you want to know anything about me, if you want to have a continued conversation, you have to watch my movie first... it would be like a gift for anyone to actually spend two hours watching my film.” —Kristen Stewart [47:52]
• Both Stewart and Marchese affirm the open, risky, rewarding nature of their conversation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Selfhood:
  “Anytime you start talking about yourself, it becomes kind of this tired, pathetic, messy thing. And I wanted to make something tired, pathetic and messy that felt exuberant...” —Kristen Stewart [03:09]

• On Public Perception:
  “Who you think you are has nothing to do with what other people think you are. And so, like, no one's wrong, you know?” —Kristen Stewart [13:07]

• On Gender and Performance:
  “Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore... unmasculine. There's no bravado in suggesting that you're a mouthpiece now for someone else's ideas.” —Kristen Stewart [15:39]

• On Hollywood Studio Films:
  “I don't feel the need to feed the machine anymore... I was kind of jealous, you know, I was kind of greedy. I was like, maybe I could make that work. Maybe that'll be fun. But it just wasn't. Like, I want to play... then you go to the party, and you're like, this party sucks.” —Kristen Stewart [20:49–21:43]

• On Artistic Systems:
  “The system has barred people and made it too, too difficult. To be honest.” —Kristen Stewart [27:26]

• On Sex Scenes:
  “I never really again want to stand in a room and watch two people fuck. I'm just like, my whole life, you know, that's just our whole lives. And it's nice to get an odd angle of it.” —Kristen Stewart [44:15]

• On Artistic Honesty:
  “Make art about the things you don't want to know about yourself. You know what I mean? That's how you meet your actual person inside.” —Kristen Stewart [47:12]

• On Watching Her Movie:
  “If you want to know anything about me, if you want to have a continued conversation, you have to watch my movie first. This isn't about selling my film... it would be, like, a gift for anyone to actually spend two hours watching my film.” —Kristen Stewart [47:52]

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Important Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 02:54 – Stewart on the “fact of the telling” in Yuknavitch’s memoir
• 07:10 – Long process getting the film made
• 09:52 – On embracing public embarrassment
• 13:07 – Stewart on persona and relinquishing control
• 15:39–17:21 – Discussion on method acting, performance, and gender
• 20:40 – Disillusionment with blockbuster committee culture
• 27:26 – “System has barred people...”
• 30:39 – Barbie as both critique and advertisement
• 33:49 – Stewart’s answer to “what is it you don’t want to know about yourself?”
• 43:05–44:15 – The future of sex scenes and sexual honesty on screen
• 47:52 – Stewart’s final takeaway: “watch my movie first!”
• 49:10 – Shared reflection on risk in conversation

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Tone & Style

Stewart responds with humor, candor, and reflection—often challenging received wisdom and disrupting interviewer expectations. The conversation is loose, direct, and engaging, skipping over superficial platitudes in favor of vulnerability and mutual curiosity.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

• The episode offers rare insight not just into Kristen Stewart’s directorial ambitions, but her worldview—a frank, sometimes irreverent take on Hollywood, art-making, self-doubt, queerness, and womanhood.
• Listeners are treated to unfiltered thoughts on the difficulties and rewards of forging an authentic artistic path and the continual challenge of shaking off both industry and social expectations.
• The conversation is rewarding for anyone interested in creative process, gender dynamics in film, or what it means to risk vulnerability both onscreen and off.
• Ultimately, Stewart leaves the listener with an invitation: the real conversation is in her film itself.

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Transcript

[David Marchese]

This podcast is supported by the Defending Our Neighbors Fund. Across the country, immigrants are facing family separation, wrongful detention and deportation without due process or access to legal support. The Defending Our Neighbors Fund exists to change that. Powered by people like you, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund is providing access to life saving legal aid to families in crisis. But they urgently need your help to meet unprecedented demand. Together we can defend our neighbors and keep families together. Donate [e-mail] donate.

From the new York Times this is the interview. I'm David Marchese.

When it comes to artists and celebrities, there are few things more exciting than change when the person we thought we knew shows us something different. Kristen Stewart has shown us that a few times. She shot to stardom in big budget Hollywood hits like the Twilight series, But by her mid-20s, she stepped stepped away from popcorn movies in favor of independent films including 2021's Spencer. She played Princess Diana, earning herself an Academy Award nomination.

Stewart has undergone a pretty profound transformation off screen, too. She used to be a frequent target of the tabloid press, both for her relationships, notably with her Twilight co star Robert Pattinson, and also for her often sullen seeming public appearances. Things seem different now, as I found out when we spoke. Stewart, who publicly came out in 2017 and earlier this year married the screenwriter and producer Dylan Meyer, is riding some entirely new energy. At 35, she's just directed her first full length feature, the Chronology of Water. The film is an adaptation of Lidia Yakovic's intense memoir. She was a competitive swimmer who fought her way through various traumas in order to become the writer she needed to be. Stewart has made a bold movie, one which raises questions about womanhood, sexuality, excess and the stories we choose to tell about ourselves, questions that set the stage for a pretty fun and freewheeling conversation. Here's my interview with Kristen Stewart.

Hi, Kristen. How are you?

[Kristen Stewart]

Great. How are you?

[David Marchese]

I'm good, I'm good. Thank you for taking the time to come do this. I appreciate it.

[Kristen Stewart]

I am 100% honored, truly.

[David Marchese]

All right, we'll just get right into it.

[Kristen Stewart]

Okay.

[David Marchese]

So you've been trying to make the Chronology of Water for I think it's close to 10 years. And, you know, it's a memoir that involves a lot of really heavy stuff. You know, there's addiction, child abuse, the loss of an infant. I'm just wondering when you first read the book, what was it about that material that made you feel like this was a story that you had to tell?

[Kristen Stewart]

It was the way that she told it it was the fact of the telling.

There is an invitation in that text to kind of excavate your own memories. And also it's about the things that you just mentioned. But for me, it's much less about the things that happened to Lydia and much more about how she reorients those things and writes them down. The idea of selfhood, just the idea of diaristic writing by women feeling and being criticized for being, like, selfish and narcissistic. It's like, oh, sorry, I was being selfish. I wanted a self. It's like anytime you start talking about yourself, it becomes kind of this tired, pathetic, messy thing. And I wanted to make something tired, pathetic and messy that felt exuberant and achieved and, you know, encouraging.

[David Marchese]

You opened up a lot of doors with that answer. So, yeah, well, let's start going through some of them. But I think you said that your interest in the material wasn't necessarily so much about the particulars of Lydia's experience as it was the way that the writing invited you to sort of examine the particulars of your own experience. And I just wonder if you can kind of make that concrete a little bit. Like, what would.

[Kristen Stewart]

You know, as soon as you start making those things specific, you fully and completely dilute the point. You know, in the beginning of the movie, we show a series of images of a woman bleeding at various times in her life. There's a way that. That blood sticks to the grout before down the drain. That indicates that that did not come from a laceration or a cut. It came from an orifice. That is a very, very specific experience. But it is also general enough for everyone to kind of insert their lives into the movie. If you are a woman or if you might have ever loved a woman or heard her speak about what it feels like to bleed from the place that hurts the most, but that creates life. You know, the movie is called tough because when you reduce it to these specific plot points, it provides an arena for men to feel a lot of shame. And you don't have. It's honestly quite like. It's very self revealing because sometimes I talk to people, I'm like, is the thing that you took away from this not that it's an exuberant, bloodletting, telling, secret bearing, sort of like joyous celebration of a woman finding herself in her own volition and freedom? Or is it that it was, like, kind of awkward? Because for you to acknowledge that, you know.

Those things don't happen to everyone, but they do happen to most women is awkward. And so it's like, yeah, sure, like I specifically think of things that have happened in my life. But if the question is like, you know, what concrete things? Did I have an abusive relationship with my father? No. Do I resent him when he comments on my appearance? Yes. Don't consider. You know what I mean? It's like it's all about how we're contextualized by the male gaze.

[David Marchese]

You know, I think an idea that I was thinking about as I was watching the film was the relationship between one's own experience and sort of the emotionally intense experiences of, in this case, the author. But I think kind of what I hear you saying is that my question is maybe a little bit irrelevant.

[Kristen Stewart]

I think that question.

Is super necessary and interesting and I do really appreciate it because what I wanna say always is that if you get bogged down in the details and you pick this woman apart, you're not giving her a chance to be as genius as she is. So I think it's definitely important to talk about the fact that this is not a movie about this one woman. It's a movie about women being allowed to speak for themselves and be people.

[David Marchese]

That was a very elegant and impassioned way of saying it's the movie. Nice question, dummy.

[Kristen Stewart]

No, not at all. I literally don't mean. I don't mean to talk down to that question. Like, what else are you going to ask?

[David Marchese]

I'm teasing.

[Kristen Stewart]

It does seem like what the movie's about. Do not. Like I'm a morning person.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

I'm like, hey, yeah, sorry, this is.

[David Marchese]

A total naive question, but why does it take eight years to make a movie like this? It's not like a giant special effects movie or, you know, a bunch of locations all over the world or something. So what? It seems like an unusually long time. Maybe it's not in your business, but.

[Kristen Stewart]

I was lucky to be allowed to make this movie at all. I don't know that this movie would have gotten financed by anyone if I wasn't me. I had to do a lot of kicking and screaming. I think it's a multi tiered answer that I hope I have the sort of wherewithal to organize at this moment. You know, I had never made a movie before. It does not have a three act structure that is easy to classify. And so most of the time it's difficult to pay for something that doesn't have an equatable success story. You know what I mean? Like something that you go, oh, well, this is going to be great because we've seen it Before. Yeah, exactly. It's like this meets. This is always how you try and, like, sell and market a movie. It's like, I don't know what this meets. This meets anything. But this had to be the first thing I said. It just had to be. Because it's about saying things. But it took a long time because it is unsavory, unpalatable, because it is about violation and repossession. And also how fun it is to watch someone do that because she is just a force. She's like a tsunami. And also there's a sexuality in it that just feels like fucking delicious.

[David Marchese]

I think you were just talking about, in a way, the idea of Lydia's sense of abandon. You know, that could be sexual abandon, creative abandon, abandon when it comes to drinking or drug use, abandon with relationships. You know, I think abandon in one's life is important.

Because there's sort of a concentric circle or an overlapping circle with transcendence in a certain way.

And I think abandon does require some degree of anonymity or you don't want, like a voice over here while you're trying to really lose yourself. And I wonder if, given that you're a public figure in some way, if it's hard for you to feel abandoned or have moments of transcendence.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, I don't self censor. I don't fixate on kind of how things are going to land on other people because I'm not smart enough. It would just be so inauthentic. I mean, I guess it just.

[David Marchese]

Do you think it's a matter of intelligence?

[Kristen Stewart]

Some people are mastermind, crazy, control freak, and I just don't have that. Ultimately, I think those people are probably gonna, like, die young and, like, you know, I don't know. That's like. I think it would take years off your life to try and think in those terms. But I've. I've been lucky enough to sort of find the moments that I fell on my face in public or, you know.

A nice healthy amount of humiliation is really humbling. You know what I mean? Like, and it also makes you realize too, that, like, you know, that first scratch, who cares? Like, after that first scratch, you just go, like, okay, so crash. You know what I mean? Like, we can fix it. The way that I've been allowed to bounce off of people has felt so fruitful.

Largely.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

On the whole, on the.

Sorry.

[David Marchese]

But the way that people who don't know you have a relationship with you, it's a very rare mode of human existence. So what have you sort of taken away from being one of these few people who can actually, like, witness what it's like to become a character in a story not of their own making?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah. I mean, sometimes you find yourself on something that doesn't really know what it's saying. And so then the sort of subsequent conversation is confused and sort of ambiguous and becomes, like, very celly. Like, it feels like really, like you're just like a capitalist cog, which we all are. I mean, like, that's like, what it is. I want everyone to go, hey, go. Go buy a ticket to the Chronology of Water Christmas Day. So, but, like, I.

Yeah, like, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You know, it's. It's definitely possible to be truthful within the system. But then when you're trying to sell something, it does sort of inherently get bizarre. I was working with a director that was, like, talking about an actress who was thinking about whether or not they should do a film. And they were like, well, I think the market right now is. And I was like, I don't think I've ever said the word market unless I was going to buy some oranges. And that is just how I function. And even if that's naive, I am willfully, like, honestly, tunnel vision. And I know you did ask a slightly different question. Like, if I'm telling someone else's story what it feels like to do that on maybe such, like a large scale and is part of a business, maybe that. Was that your question?

[David Marchese]

I think you should just let it rip. Just go with where you were going.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah. You're like, not at all. But.

Yeah. I don't know. I think it's just a. It's a funny thing to find yourself.

Kind of desperate to have people come see what you worked on, but then also have that wrapped in. Wrapped up in whether or not, you know, it's worthwhile.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

And I don't think I answered your question, but I, you know, maybe the next one I'll get closer to no.

[David Marchese]

You know, sometimes people say, like, I don't think I answer your question, but every answer is revealing in its own way, even if it's not the answer to the question I expressed.

[Kristen Stewart]

But now I'm like, so curious about what you were asking, but it's okay, we can move on.

[David Marchese]

No, I was just asking. It's like, you know, you became, at some point, you became a character in the tabloids.

[Kristen Stewart]

Right.

[David Marchese]

And I was curious about what do you learn from, like, seeing this character, Kristen Stewart, out in the World. In that world, specifically.

[Kristen Stewart]

Oh, interesting.

[David Marchese]

And, you know, it's not you. It's this character, Kristen Stewart, that has been created. That's.

[Kristen Stewart]

Sometimes it is.

[David Marchese]

I said it like, I know you. I don't know you. Maybe it was you, but you do.

[Kristen Stewart]

Know me now, and that belongs to you. And you can think anything about me that you want. Do you know what I mean? Like, I have given you those details, I guess the part that if I've ever been frustrated, it's because, you know, they get the wrong information. Or you sort of go, like, that's not who I think I am. But then you go, like, who you think you are has nothing to do with what other people think you are. And so, like, no one's wrong, you know?

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

And that's. The relinquishing of control that I'm talking about is, like, you really just, like, you must slide, or else you'll. It's not about not being smart enough to control it. It's that it's not possible.

[David Marchese]

Right. So it would just be an exercise in futility if you tried.

[Kristen Stewart]

Exactly.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, just. You said something a second ago about sort, the connection between, like, the thing you're making and sort of what it means to you and this. I'm just gonna go on a slight little tangent right now, because that's where my. That's just something that popped up to my mind. If you're allowed to go on tangents. I'm allowed to go on tangent.

[Kristen Stewart]

I was gonna say, well, now we're hanging out, so we're gonna be, like, off in the ether, and they're gonna be like, we've been talking for an hour and a half. You're done. Go.

[David Marchese]

I've always been fixated on Marlon Brando's performance as himself. Well, throughout his life. Yes. Well, the answer. Yes, I have been. But it's particularly his performance as Superman's dad in the first Superman film where, like, he has to say the word Krypton, the planet where Superman is from.

[Kristen Stewart]

I've never seen this. Does he, like, not say it? Is he, like Krypton?

[David Marchese]

That's exactly how he says it.

[Kristen Stewart]

He says Krypton because he can't commit to Krypton. He can't literally. I can picture this. I've never seen the movie Krypton, though.

[David Marchese]

And everyone else in the movie says Krypton. And I'm sure at some point somebody's like, you know, Marlon. It's actually pronounced kid Krypton.

[Kristen Stewart]

Poor male actors. God, it must just Be so painful.

[David Marchese]

It must have been hard to be Marlon Brando. But I brought this up in sort of a similar context with Sean Penn because he knew Marlon Brando. And I was like, oh, it's just weird that Brando wouldn't do that. Like, what was going on? And he suggested that actually not pronouncing Krypton correctly was Brando's way of sort of retaining some part of himself even though he was doing this sellout movie. It's like, oh, I can take your money, but I'm not giving you my soul. And I thought, oh, that probably is what was going on. Like, he had to hold on to some measure of artistic independence, even though he knew he was doing this thing that was kind of like it was a paycheck job.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

Have you had similar experiences or does that resonate with you at all?

[Kristen Stewart]

That has kickstarted so many.

[David Marchese]

Oh, good, we're in it now, Kristen. Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

Okay. So performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine. You know what I mean? Like, there's no bravado in.

Suggesting that you're a mouthpiece now for someone else's ideas and that to sort of lend yourself.

You know, it's just inherently submissive.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method? And I'm not coming for, like, the method. I don't even know enough about the method.

[David Marchese]

I mean, the only name that comes to mind is a teacher, you know, Stella Adler. But I can't think of a performer who's associated with it.

[Kristen Stewart]

Right.

[David Marchese]

In the way that some men are associated with it.

[Kristen Stewart]

Right. Men are aggrandized for retaining self. You know, that was like. He's been really, like. He sounds like a hero, doesn't he?

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

If a woman did that, it would be really. And I don't wanna say this like, black and white. Like, for sure, I know that there would be this difference, But I truly believe, from a very insider's perspective, that if you have to do 50 pushups before you're close up, or if you refuse to sort of say a word a certain way, or if you can't sit down in an interview and not kind of like repossess and belittle every question, especially if asked by a woman, to you, the movie star. I mean, like, Brando, he's. I mean, fuck, like, I'm not coming for him. Mm. Incredible performer. There's a kind of, like, really common act that happens before the acting happens sometimes on set. Not only does it waste time, it draws attention it siphons. And look, I get it sort of makes. If. It makes everyone stand at attention and sort of.

If you can protrude out of the vulnerability a little bit and you can sort of feel like, you know, a gorilla pounding their chest before they cry on camera, and it's a little less embarrassing to see. And also, it makes it seem like it's a magic trick. It makes it seem like it's so impossible to do what you're doing that nobody else could do it.

[David Marchese]

Also, maybe a form of control.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah. And so I think maybe the Krypton thing is.

You know.

It. Let me think. Let me think of a way to kind of sum this up so I don't, like, totally ruin this point.

It's so defensive. You know, it's like. I had a recent conversation that will, you know, speak to this and maybe finish the point.

I asked a fellow actor, have you ever met a female actor that was, like, method and needed to sort of scream and, you know, do a whole thing where as soon as I said the word male actor, female actor, he got, like, so defense, and he's like, one of my biggest best friends.

The reaction was so kind of like, do not mention the elephant in the room. And he goes, oh, actresses are crazy. And I was like, now I'm crazy. And then I was like, wait, but really, answer that question.

[David Marchese]

That was his answer. That was his response. Yeah, absolutely.

[Kristen Stewart]

And then I was like, hold on a second. You just call me crazy? And I was like, cool. So now we're just doing the typical thing where the girl's crazy and you didn't even listen to anything I said because I said the word male, female. Yeah. And so, yeah, I do think that there's, like, a large difference in terms of performance and generosity and giving. And we are made to give. We are literally designed to give you what you want, and we're really good at it, and we really love it. And men are designed to give, like, in a very different way and to take. You know what I mean? So I think. Yeah, that's a really. We could talk about that for, like, five hours.

[David Marchese]

Let me just scratch my next question. Why are actresses crazy? Don't ask that.

[Kristen Stewart]

Oh, man. Love you, bro.

[David Marchese]

You know, when I was going back through your films, there are two little periods that I'm just sort of. I was wondering if they were inflection points in some way. And so the first was when you did the Snow White film. And I want to say that was the last. The same year that the last Twilight film came out.

[Kristen Stewart]

It was.

[David Marchese]

And both those movies did very well. And then you didn't do another. I don't know what you'd want to call it. Sort of like a big, spectacular studio film for a few years until the Charlie's Angels reboot. And then you haven't gone back to that particular well since. And I just wondered if you had thought to yourself, all right, I'm kind of done with those types of films for a while. And then did you make a decision like, with Charlie's Angels, I'm gonna try again. And that ended up not feeling right. And you haven't done it since?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, I wanted to help Liz Banks do her thing.

[David Marchese]

The director of the Charlie's Angels?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, she directed Charlie's. And.

You know, I guess I was maybe feeling a little bit hopeful and optimistic.

But I really just don't. I don't believe I spiritually and philosophically disagree with the.

Sort of committee process. You know, I think a movie comes from someone's singularity in their perspective and their soul. And.

I. I hate signing on to something and seeing something with potential life be destroyed. And just, you know, I'm not saying that Charlie's Angels was destroyed. It's more the day to day. I like that movie. I like. I don't think it's impossible to make a film that speaks to people. That's valuable, that feels good and that's worth paying for under those circumstances. But I don't have to do it. And so I don't want to. So, yeah, like, it's. I think as an actor, I don't feel the need to feed the machine anymore. And when I was younger, I was kind of jealous, you know, I was kind of greedy. I was like, maybe I could make that work. Maybe that'll be fun. But it just wasn't like, I want to play, you know what I mean? It's like I don't want to not get invited to the party. But then you go to the party and you're like, this party sucks.

[David Marchese]

Most of the people who encounter this conversation will not have experience of what it's like to be on a movie set. So when you refer to like the day to day of that sucks, like, what does that mean? What happens that you're like, this is not what I want to be doing?

[Kristen Stewart]

Sure. Test screenings.

Literal on paper, numbered equations that tell you whether or not a joke is funny.

10 people who are over the age of 50 and male weighing in on what my queer character's hair should look like, completely sucking the.

Colloquialism, like anything that makes anything specific, you know what I mean? It's just. And so it's like, yeah, day to day, you watch something with kind of detail and color become really gray and it's dispiriting. It's dispiriting, yeah. It's demoralizing. And it's also entirely misogynistic and chauvinistic. And it's like, just not the realm that really creates an environment for me to want to be vulnerable in. And that's like my whole job as an actor. It's why guys get embarrassed about being embarrassed. You know what I mean? It's like my job is to be embarrassed, but to feel safe doing it. And so in environments like that, with people like that, I don't feel safe, nor should I. Yeah.

[David Marchese]

And where I was going originally with that question was maybe like an overly literal interpretation of your use of the word greedy.

[Kristen Stewart]

Oh, yeah, Energetically.

[David Marchese]

I don't mean like, has there ever been an aspect of like. Well, it's hard to say no when somebody's offering you millions of dollars to do something.

[Kristen Stewart]

I mean, not to. Well, I'll just be like fully transparent. I was such a little guy when I made Twilight. I made a lot of money. Like, I'm so unbelievably lucky. Yes. I've been so lucky to not have to function from a place of like, you know, creating security for myself, for my family. Like, I. Twilight blew up in our faces, you know, and the positive repercussions of that I'm so grateful for. But I think if that never happened, I would be scraping the bottom of every barrel to never make another studio movie again and never. You know what I mean? It's like this is. That's. It's just the. It's the setup that I think is the most cohes to a beautiful life.

[David Marchese]

You sort of answered my next question a little bit, but I'll ask it regardless. And maybe there's more to say, but I was really thinking about what it means for an artist to be so young like you were when you made the first Twilight film. And for that to go gangbusters and then to not really have to worry about money anymore. Because I could imagine that being completely freeing. I could also imagine that, you know, sometimes, like, having the wide open horizon is actually paralyzing, you know. So how do you think that or what did that change for you in terms of what you decided you wanted to do with the rest of your life?

[Kristen Stewart]

And I'm trying To think about, like when that actually when I transitioned into being a real grown up adult who was like, hold on a second, what's going on here?

[David Marchese]

It's still happening.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, it's still happening, truly. And I think maybe I have this kind of like willful, not willful. Like.

You know, if you got a lot of money, you really gotta give a lot of it away and you really gotta share it. And you really gotta make sure that like, I know for a fact I would be able to make myself happy artistically without it. And also the ever changing climate, I don't even know the structures that are like the ones that we believe in now. Who knows what the world is gonna look like in like five, 10 years, you know what I mean? Like, it truly is. We're like at a pivotal nexus because I think we're ready for a full system break. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just think we need to like. I mean, and I mean that across the board and also specific to like the world that I live in, which is like very exclusively the entertainment industry.

[David Marchese]

And what would a system break look like in the world that you live in?

[Kristen Stewart]

I don't know. I think we need to start sort of stealing our movies. I'm so appreciative of every union, Trust me, we would not survive without them.

But some of the terms and some of the rules and some of the structures we've set up have created unbelievable barriers for artists to express themselves. And I think that without being unfaithful, ungrateful.

I think we need a little workaround. I think having it be so impossible for people to tell stories and having it be such an exclusive and rarefied novel position to be in, to find yourself doing so is capitalist hell. And it hates women and it hates marginalized voices and it's racist. And I think that we need to figure out a way to make it easier to speak to each other through cinema in cinematic terms. It's too hard to make movies right now that aren't blockbustery, whatever proven equations. And so what does that mean? I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure it out. But the next movie I want to make, I want to do it for nothing. I want to make not a dollar. I want it to be a smash hit. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's just so difficult to make movies. It just doesn't need to be so. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of some sort of weird, like, Marxist, communist like situation that other people can definitely Think, like, of course this psycho is saying that, but I think it's possible, especially in these kind of narrow and exclusive environments. I'm not talking about the world at large, but for us, we've just made it. The system has. Has barred people and made it too, too difficult. To be honest.

[David Marchese]

I'm not sure if you were using this example sarcastically or not, but when you said you want to basically make a movie for nothing that's a huge hit, do you think you, Kristen Stewart, could make a movie that's a huge hit, that that is the movie that you want to make?

[Kristen Stewart]

Well, I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by, like, huge hit. You know, if the target is, like, you know, I know everyone says this Marvel is like the tentpole reference for, like, big movies, but, like, you know, pick another one, because I'm not coming for that specifically, but if that's the goal. No, I mean, no, probably nothing like that, because, again, I do think that that requires a little bit of, like, homogeny. But if you do something for nothing and you reach even just a small number of people.

That'S enough for me. Do you know what I mean? A huge hit in terms of it got a theatrical release, that we did a few interviews about it, that we had a couple screenings, that some people watched it, that some person on letterboxd said, oh, wow, that changed me. Do you know what I mean? That truly is a hit.

[David Marchese]

You know, sort of underneath the conversation has been this idea of sort of like, who?

[Kristen Stewart]

And also, oh, yeah, we could totally make a huge hit. Do you know what I mean? I just realized that your question was, like, do you think that left to your own devices, I wonder if it's about your sensibility. Totally my sensibility. Do I think it could land on a large number of people? I think that if people had the cojones to allow one person to lead the charge, and they were actually financed and supported and believed in, that people would start going to the movies again and not just to go see, like, you know, Marvel 10.

[David Marchese]

I wasn't. I didn't mean to imply that I didn't have faith that you could.

[Kristen Stewart]

I'm not saying to you. I just realized, like, what you asked me, and I was like, yes, we could make a huge hit, a smash hit.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, but so Barbie, dude. Which one?

[Kristen Stewart]

Barbie.

[David Marchese]

Barbie? Yeah. Did you like Barbie?

[Kristen Stewart]

I love that movie.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. Can I. I just want to say one thing about Barbie, which I liked very much also. My.

[Kristen Stewart]

This is a divisive subject.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. Yes. My. Also, no, One cares what I have to say about Barbie, but I want to express it anyway.

[Kristen Stewart]

That's not true.

[David Marchese]

My one problem with that movie, which I enjoyed very much, I took my two daughters to go see it. They were at the time probably 6 and 8 or something like that. They're just sort of enraptured watching it. And I thought the takeaway of this movie, even though there are things that are subversive about it and things that are sort of politically and societally and culturally critical about it, the takeaway of this movie is that Barbie dolls are cool.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, I hear you. Like, maybe it.

[David Marchese]

Ironically, a critique of the thing can also still be an advertisement for the thing.

[Kristen Stewart]

Right, right, right.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. Just something to think about.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah. No, I mean, look. No, like 100%. I do hear you. I think.

I think for. I think for a woman to be allowed to make a movie of that scale and how physical it was like, she built all the sets, she made a world to live in, and then she totally took Barbie and broke her into a million years. Yeah.

[David Marchese]

Greta Gerwig you're talking about.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, the villains were like the Mattel executives, all of it. It's like, I'm surprised that Mattel let her make that movie. I thought it was so critical of the entire notion of being sort of like, put in to our little packages and boxes and how like, sort of like. But I hear you. At the same time, you see a big poster for that Margot Robbie's on, and you're like, oh, my God, that is the picture of beauty. Yeah, of course. You go, that is perpetuating for sure. Yeah. You know, it's complicated because I actually completely understand what you're saying, but when I watched the movie, I was just sitting there like my. I was just sort of like stream crying. Like, just the fact that she was allowed to do it, the fact that she was allowed to make obscure jokes about Proust in a movie about Barbie and then like, weird Barbie. There was just. I don't know. I love the fact of it.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. You know, I sort of twice was trying to lead up to like a bigger kind of like final encapsulation question about how, you know, the idea that we've, you know, kind of are talking about the story of you in various ways. But I think I might save that. Cause we're talking again and I know you have to split very shortly.

[Kristen Stewart]

These are always the questions at the end. Honestly, I can always feel the approach of the end of an interview where I go. And you're not doing it. This is just inherent. This happens to us all. I always go, okay, here we go. Time for the summary. Or like time to imbue the whole conversation with my imparting thoughts.

[David Marchese]

We only have so many tricks.

[Kristen Stewart]

It's hard.

[David Marchese]

It's another card we're gonna play every time. But I'm gonna end in a different way. I was just reading a book last night by this really brilliant psychoanalyst and writer named Adam Phillips. And there's one offhand thing that he had in there that I thought that would be a good question to ask someone. So in the book.

[Kristen Stewart]

Sorry, wait, what's the book called again?

[David Marchese]

The book is called, I think it's called On Becoming Something. Something like that. On Becoming, yeah. And he quotes someone else who's. Who said the only modern question is what is it you don't want to know about yourself?

What's your answer to that question?

[Kristen Stewart]

I guess.

I guess I would be really ashamed if.

All of this to do, working on movies, talking about them, taking pictures, putting on clothes. Like it's inherently self serving, of course, but that selfishness.

It'S just so mutual. Like we all want for ourselves. But I think like, okay, philosophical question. If there's one, if there's something that you don't want to know about yourself, what is it?

I don't know, man. I really hate, like mean people and I really don't think I am one.

But maybe sometimes if I'm like feeling threatened, I can be mean. But like.

God, I wish I had a bet. Do you have anything?

[David Marchese]

Were you. Wait, were you tiptoeing at the beginning of your answer to something about acknowledging a selfishness in yourself?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, totally not tiptoeing. Like, definitely. Like, I hope I'm not just like an egomaniac monster. Like, do you know what I mean? Because I think that everyone should listen to me, you know, I think like, I should be heard. Everyone, I think everyone should be. But like, there's not that much room. Like it's like. But I guess on a base level I would need more time to think about. Let's come back to this one too, actually. Sure, sure. But I think like.

I don't know, the knowledge about myself maybe, like, do I even really like, care about people? Or is it just that I'm desperate not to be alone? Do you know what I mean? Like, do I actually care? No, I do, though.

[David Marchese]

Well, it's something for you to think about on your plane ride to Poland, which I know you got a split for.

[Kristen Stewart]

So thank you very much in Poland, dude.

[David Marchese]

Thank you very much for taking all the time.

[Kristen Stewart]

Likewise. Yeah, this was fun.

[David Marchese]

After the break, Kristen and I speak again about the type of sex she's sick of seeing in movies.

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, I think, like, I've seen a lot of sex scenes that are titillating and a lot of sex scenes that are, you know, exterior. I never want to. I never really again want to stand in a room and watch two people fuck.

[David Marchese]

This podcast is supported by the Defending Our Neighbors Fund. Across the country, immigrants are facing family separation, wrongful detention, and deportation without due process or access to legal support. The Defending Our Neighbors Fund exists to change that. Powered by people like you, the Defending Our Neighbors Fund is providing access to life saving legal aid to families in crisis. But they urgently need your help to meet unprecedented demand. Together, we can defend our neighbors and keep families together. Donate now at defendingourneighbors.org donate the energy.

[Kristen Stewart]

Of reggaeton, the spirit of salsa, the beat of La Bamba, the music of Puerto Rico is known worldwide. When you visit the island, you aren't just visiting Puerto Rico. You're stepping into music's past, present and future to a beat that lasts all year long, not just for one summer. Learn all the ways you can discover Puerto Rico. Learn [e-mail] how does tennis superstar Naomi Osaka unwind?

[David Marchese]

And how does New Zealand rugby legend Roko Thoko build camaraderie among his team? Hi there. I'm Isabella Rossellini. And in the final episode of this Is Not A Beauty Podcast from l' Oreal Group, we speak to some of the world's greatest athletes to dig into how beauty shapes sports. Listen now on your favorite podcast platform.

Are you ready to go?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

So you, you were in Poland yesterday, but now you're in London, is that right?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yes.

[David Marchese]

And how did it go showing the film in Poland?

[Kristen Stewart]

Incredible audience. You palpably understand the response that an audience has to your film when you enter the room for a Q and A. And it was a bunch of students kind of like leaning toward me and not kind of slouched in their chairs with their head in their hands. They were like, they looked alive. They looked kind of on fire. So I was like, okay, I think this may have gone quite well. It was a fun conversation. Good.

[David Marchese]

You know, we had ended our last conversation with kind of like a big question I'd asked that I took from this book. I actually had gotten the title wrong before, but the book is called the Life youe Want by Adam Phillips. And that question was, what is it you don't want to know about yourself? Have you given any more thought to that question?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yes, and I've asked a lot of other people what their answers would be, and it is confounding. Nobody has one. Ah. Because I think there's. There are so many ways to interpret what that means. Like, is there something that you don't want to find out? Like, there's. Is there something within yourself that you're avoiding that you kind of don't want to look at? Or is it something that you really do know in the depths of yourself but you're avoiding?

[David Marchese]

I interpreted the question. I think it was the first way that you mentioned. It's like, what's the thing that you maybe don't really want to know about yourself or don't want to have to confront?

[Kristen Stewart]

Right. Something that you do know that you wish you didn't.

[David Marchese]

Kinda. Kinda, yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

Do you have an answer to this? Do people turn this around on you?

[David Marchese]

I did come up with answers because I was. I was thinking about it also.

And do I feel comfortable getting into those answers?

[Kristen Stewart]

I mean, you can kind of. You can kind of. Gimme a quickie.

[David Marchese]

Okay.

[Kristen Stewart]

Just for conversation's sake. I'm curious. Like, it seems like you thought about it, but it was probably not hard to say. But you don't have to. Definitely. I mean, this is about.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, they're both embarrassing, so I'm just gonna say them. I'll say them quickly. But the first one is embarrassing because it really is such a cliche. But the first one is, why did I not have the guts to try and be, like, an actual artist earlier in my life? And then the second one is.

There'S sometimes almost like a feeling of disdain that I can have for my body or my physical appearance. And I'm like, I don't know what that's really about. So those would be my two answers. There you go.

[Kristen Stewart]

Right? Like, you wish you didn't, like, judge yourself.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

From other. Because honestly, that's like, you were not born with that. That's like a weird, insane thing that you caught out there, like a disease, you know? And trust me, that's like, we're all with you. I'm with you. Like, yeah. Like, there are times where I'm. I'm like, God, can't you, like.

Can'T you have an easier energy? Like, I wish there were things, but then it's like, is this question about changing yourself or is it, like, something you really don't Want to know? Because, like.

If I didn't know that sometimes I made people feel awkward, maybe I just wouldn't feel awkward about making people feel awkward. You know what I mean?

[David Marchese]

It's like, totally.

[Kristen Stewart]

And I can tell you, you're a cutie pie. So that's a crock of shit.

[David Marchese]

Someone clip that and put it on Social immediately.

All right, let's move on to my next idea.

For this part of the interview. But I was watching another interview you did recently about the film. And at the end the interviewer asked you for a kind of like a cultural recommendation that you would give for Hollywood. And you mentioned a film by Barbara Hammer called Multiple Orgasm, which then I went and watched. You know, it was. Let's just. It sparked a lot. But can you just. Quickly, for people who aren't familiar with that work, can you explain what it is?

[Kristen Stewart]

Yeah, it's like a. It's an impressionistic experimental short film by a woman who's like just astoundingly prolific. But I saw that movie and was so shocked because there's a sequence in my film that is very similar. And I was like, oh my God, we saw the same thing. And we said it kind of similarly and it just felt really great. And so I thought maybe people should see that movie. And it's very confronting. Cause it's like pretty graphic in terms of.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, I need to say, I think you sort of buried the lead a little bit. I mean, the film is. It's interspersing of close up images of a woman masturbating interspersed with images of sort of natural scenery.

[Kristen Stewart]

It's relating the female body to like organic material that feels.

You know, it's very Georgia o'. Keeffe. It's like a little experimental movie that maybe not everyone has seen. And so I thought maybe it was an important thing to pass on.

[David Marchese]

The unabashed nature of it connects to something else that I was curious about. And I wanna preface this by saying this is gonna end up being a question about sex. And if there's any part where you're like, eh, I really would rather not talk about that, you just give me the sign and I'll move on. But the fact that you recommended that Barbara Hammer film, or it had been kind of in your mind, combined with the sexual forthrightness of your movie. And then also this is part of what I was thinking about also the fact that you made last year the film Love Lies Bleeding, which I kind of thought in some ways as like a statement film. And that film has so Much to do with sort of queer eroticism. All these things in conjunction made me wonder if there are things that sort of like you've realized about sex or learned about sex or are curious about sex that you've then wanted to explore in your work more recently.

[Kristen Stewart]

If there's anything that I've learned, I don't. I think.

I really. I love watching things that.

Don'T feel performative, that do feel inhabited and kind of.

Instinctive instead of like, oh, I'm really thinking about this, like from the outside, like, how does this look? And that's often how women. You really want to perform and display that you're into it and good at it and that whoever you're with is good at it. And maybe if you can perform that, then it can be true. And.

There'S like a slower, more undulating experience that can happen as you get older that I would like to start seeing in art. And I will say that I think that my movie emulates, even in its entire form, the kind of more.

Pleasantly frustrating, longer experience of a success story, which is potentially also related to climax. And you plateau into a sort of contentment after a lot of false victories and false starts. And then you achieve something that feels like self earned, even if accompanied. And.

Yeah, I think, like, I've seen a lot of sex scenes that are titillating and a lot of sex scenes that are, you know, exterior. I never wanna. I never really again wanna stand in a room and watch two people fucking. I'm just like, my whole life, you know, that's just. Our whole lives. And it's nice to get an odd.

[David Marchese]

Angle of it, you know, just hearing you talk, it's clear that your mind moves very quickly.

[Kristen Stewart]

I know you're like, what are you saying? You're so disjointed.

I've been talking too much lately.

[David Marchese]

I don't mean it critically at all, but I assume there must be times in your professional life and your personal life when you need to slow down. Are there ways you consciously do that?

[Kristen Stewart]

I mean, I do normal stuff. I cook soup and hang out with my family. I go home. There's a line in the movie and in the book that's in. In water, like in books, you can leave your life. I read a lot.

[David Marchese]

I thought you were gonna say smoke weed.

[Kristen Stewart]

I smoke a lot of weed, but I shouldn't, because I don't. I probably fucks with my circadian rhythm and I don't sleep.

[David Marchese]

You know, at the. In the edition that I have of the Chronology of Water there's an interview with Lidia Yukonovich at the end of the book and she just brings up the point. It's the interviewer or somehow they get on the subject of drugs and she brings up the point that, you know, we might find it culturally uncomfortable to admit, but like the truth is a lot of art has basically come out of drugs and alcohol. Have you ever been sort of inspired by drug use or drinking or.

[Kristen Stewart]

Man, I have like had a. I mean I definitely have had to self soothe in different ways as I've gotten older because I'm like kind of a, you know, I've had.

Social insecurities that within like my particular profession have just not been fun to navigate and so. Yeah.

But in terms of art making, like in terms of thinking I work best in the morning, I work best at 6 o' clock in the morning, like completely clear headed. I don't. I romanticize so much like Bukowski sitting there with a big old bottle of wine and like writing his best poems. I do not have that. I text people I shouldn't text. You were talking about a Bandon the last time we were talking too. Like how it's fun to watch her kind of fall down these holes in order to find something new, in order to kind of break through to kind of like just like crack a certain encapsulating crust. And sometimes you do need to like pour a bunch of vodka on it. Or maybe you do need to like sort of kick your own teeth down your throat. But I'm like way too old for that. I did that and I did that for a while and I think for me it's like just so much more social than it is in. I don't feel inspired when I get fucked up. Yeah, I want my brain back. You know what I mean? Like I.

Yeah, I definitely think like all of the things that I don't want to know about myself. Don't drink anymore. Make art about the things you don't want to know about yourself. You know what I mean? That's how you meet. That's how you meet your actual person inside. You know what I mean? No, I find them distracting. I guess just to be concise, when.

[David Marchese]

We spoke earlier, I was doing the thing that you. You predicted it. I was leading up to like the encapsulating final question.

[Kristen Stewart]

Here we go.

[David Marchese]

No, no. But then I was like, no, no, don't do it. I'm not gonna do the cliche but like what do you think we should end on? Where do you wanna leave people?

[Kristen Stewart]

I love how you've literally spent now, like, two hours talking to me, and you think I'm gonna be the person to. You have gotten me all wrong, sir. I won't be able to do it. We'll just be here forever. What do we want to end on? What do we want to end on? I did make an entire movie about what I wanted to say and teaching a lesson on that movie or trying to reveal this new thing about myself. This is going to be funny. It's definitely not about selling or plugging my film. But if you want to know anything about me, if you want to have a continued conversation, you have to watch my movie first. This isn't about selling my film. It's tiny. It's not. In no way is it a blockbuster. It is definitely something that requires, like, some, like, real engagement and, like, personal. It would be, like, a gift for anyone to actually spend two hours watching my film because it would be like, that you wanted to hang out with me. And so, like, I don't have anything else to say unless you want to know my favorite color or some shit. But that's also in my movie.

[David Marchese]

Of course. I felt like I was out on the wire with you a little bit in this conversation, but I was glad to be out on that wire with you. So thank you.

[Kristen Stewart]

Do you mean, like, tightrope walking?

[David Marchese]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kristen Stewart]

Oh, wow.

[David Marchese]

In, like, a sort of a positive. There was a positive element of risk, I thought a couple times, and I.

[Kristen Stewart]

Do you know what's funny? I did not feel at risk, which is great, because, like, I felt like I could really talk to you and that you weren't gonna be like, I got her. It's fucking wonderful. It's very rare.

[David Marchese]

Good. I'm glad to hear it. And good luck with the movie.

[Kristen Stewart]

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

[David Marchese]

That's Kristen Stewart. Her movie the Chronology of Water is open in select theaters now. It'll open nationwide on January 9th. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.comal@Symbol. The interview podcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Afim Shapiro. Original music by Dan Powell, Leah Shaw Dameron and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yalkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Neudorf, Eddie Costas, and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Alison Benedikt. I'm David Marchese, and this is the interview from the New York Times.

[Kristen Stewart]

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