Kristen Stewart is the cover girl for the September “Fashion Issue” of W Magazine. People are already complaining about the amount of Photoshop that went into K-Stew’s pictorial, but I think it’s only aggressively ‘Shopped in one photo. Kristen, for all of her real or perceived faults, it generally a great model in fashion photo shoots. I love the vibe of this one – 1960s sex kitten meets Valley of the Dolls druggie. Kristen should consider big hair and dark eye makeup for her red carpet looks, because it really works on her. The full W Mag interview (conducted by Lynn Hirschberg) is here, and here are some highlights:

Kristen on her start as a child actor: “It’s weird, because I would be the last person in my school to be in plays, but I was forced to sing a song in a school thing. I sang a dreidl song, which is funny for me. I’ve never celebrated Hanukkah—it wasn’t in my upbringing, but it was one of those deals where everybody has to pick a song or participate somehow in the chorus. It wasn’t the normal dreidl song; I can’t really remember the words, but it was a more serious dreidl song. The dreidl was huge, it was really honored. And that’s how I met my agent, who was in the audience. I was eight. I was nine when I did my first movie, The Safety of Objects.”

She was never cutesy: “I did two commercials, one for Porsche, but I was definitely not the type of child one would cast in a commercial or any TV that you’d typically go out for as a young kid. I wasn’t the type of kid who would be in stuff that kids watch. I wasn’t cutesy.”

Working with David Fincher in Panic Room: “I didn’t realize that 80 takes wasn’t normal. But it’s funny: Some of my proudest moments from film sets are in Panic Room. My character had seizures. Just being able to say, I was 10 years old and I broke all the blood vessels in my eye on that take, is cool. It was fun.”

On her “unusual tomboy quality”: “I have brothers, and that so-called boyish quality was something that I was deathly self-conscious about when I was younger. I was, like, No, I’m a girl. Actually, I’m still embarrassed to say that.”

On auditioning for Twilight: “I don’t really know what to say. I just knew I wanted to work. And I did. I was working when I read the script for Twilight. I read the script before I read the book. I actually did the audition before reading the book, which was kind of crazy. Obviously, I tore all four books apart over the course of three years, but initially I had no idea that Twilight was such a big deal.

She likes vampires: “I f-cking love me a vampire [Laughs]. I was 17 when I read Twilight, and at the time it was so perfect for me. The script was about young kids who think they can handle stuff that they just can’t. And they’re going to do it anyway. Because, why not? Just torture yourself. I relate to that. Vampires are a little dangerous—and we girls like to test ourselves.”

On the Breaking Dawn wedding: “Awesome. This was my first wedding. It was insane. And odd. The wedding dress experience was a huge deal. I tried on one version of the dress, and it was like tweak and tweak and alter and tweak and change, and then it’s done. BFD dress. Huge deal. [The wedding] was major. The last Twilight book is filled with BFDs, things that people have been waiting for, for so long. For me, it was ridiculously dramatic: I get married, give birth, the baby has an incredibly accelerated growth rate we’re all very concerned about, and I say goodbye to my dad for the last time ever. It was all big—I could never go, Whew, I’m losing this character.”

Saying goodbye to Bella: “I’d been anticipating that end-of-Bella moment. I was going, Oh, my God—I wonder how I’m going to feel. And the last scene of the shoot was at the wedding. Every single character was there on set. At the end of that day, I was kind of whacked. And so I never really had that moment then. Instead, it happened later. We needed to film one more sort of honeymoon scene and we went to the Virgin Islands. After that scene, my true final scene, I felt like I could shoot up into the night sky and every pore of my body would shoot light. I felt lighter than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

On not being “in control” of her life: Yeah—and that time [between 17 and 21] has been sort of nuts for me. In film, I have chronicled every stage of my life since I was nine. And it’s more intense now, obviously, because I’m not in control of it anymore….no. Not really. Not if I want to think solely about what I really like to do. It’s a funny thing: You want so badly for people to see what you do—you’re proud of it—and I like the effect that movies have on people. But the attention can also make me uncomfortable. In certain situations, people say to me, “C’mon, what’s wrong with you?” I apologize. I love what I’m doing, but I’m a little uncomfortable.”

On watching her own movies: “It’s not like I sit around watching my movies again and again, but I’ve never quite believed actors when they say they don’t watch themselves. I hear them going around the block to make excuses for why they don’t watch their work. It’s bullsh-t. Sorry, guys—I know you watch your stuff. [When I watch my stuff] I get embarrassed. It’s weird, too: I’m 10 years old in Panic Room, and that’s a version of myself that’s pretty far away, but it doesn’t feel that far away to me. Occasionally my dad will flip the TV on, and it’s cool to look at some movie that I’m in for one second. And then, ‘Dude, off. Now. Like, cut it out.’”

[From W Magazine]

I think this is one of Kristen’s better interviews. I like that Lynn H. didn’t ask a million questions about what it’s like for Kristen to be so famous, and we didn’t have to hear Kristen whine about how she can’t go to the mall. What I find most interesting is that Kristen consistently talks about her career ambitions, and how she loves to work. More work for her means more promotional duties, meaning more interviews and appearances in which she’s going to have fall back into her affected emo shtick, and she’s going to be slumped over, biting her lip and glowering at people. But she’s getting better (hopefully). Here’s the video of her interview from W Magazine. Her speech patterns, they bug.

Photos courtesy of W Magazine’s slideshow.