Kristen Stewart covers the latest issue of V Magazine. I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about this editorial, but I do have the sense that Kristen has sort of grown into herself. That’s an awkward way to say it, but you know what I mean. She seems more confidant and it shows, even in magazine editorials. She’s leaning into a more hard-edged punk vibe. Anyway, Kristen is promoting Personal Shopper, her second film with director Olivier Assayas after her Cesar-Award-winning turn in Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria. Personal Shopper has already made its way through some film festivals, and it’s getting a limited release on March 10th. You can see the full V editorial here, and here are some highlights:
On Personal Shopper’s portrayal of technology: “When you speak to someone on the phone, that is a decipherable, understandable exchange. But with text and social media, it’s essentially a dialogue with yourself and your interpretation of a shadow. It’s not invalid; it’s a new language.”
On the impact of social media and technology on our daily lives: “But you also become addicted to that hit by yourself and with yourself, every seven minutes or so, and you end up wasting so much time just validating something very superficial in yourself. It has definitely changed us.”
On the media: “I was in front of 500 cameras promoting my films, but not the one. Not the intimate one. Not the one that I really care about.”
On her relationship to fashion and Karl Lagerfeld: “Karl has always, from the very beginning, made me feel like being myself was the right thing to do. And in [the fashion] world, that is a rarity. He’s a compulsive and obsessive artist and it’s contagious. And he’s kind. He is who he is for a reason. I feel so lucky to be in his space so often.”
On the demands of Hollywood and how she deals with them: “I know that it seems like just a couple weeks at a time or whatever, but between Cannes and the New York Film Festival, it seems like I need to force myself to be like, ‘OK no, stop being external. Enough of the output.’ Sometimes, you need to—this sounds so cliché—meditate on replenishing the well.”
“Meditate on replenishing the well.” It does sound cliche, and yet… I understood what she was saying, even though I’m not a public figure at all. I’m a private person and even I need to just sit and be quiet and just decompress. I bet Kristen is the same way. As for what she says about social media…maybe I’m not a brilliant artiste like Kristen, but I found that confusing. “It’s essentially a dialogue with yourself and your interpretation of a shadow.” Is this like the high-art explanation of the phrase “doing it for the ‘gram”? Like, people are living their lives just to put that sh-t on Instagram?
Here are some photos of Kristen and her girlfriend Stella Maxwell in late January. I think they’re still together, although my theory is that Kristen has seasonal girlfriends. As in, Stella is Kristen’s winter girlfriend and Kristen will want a new girlfriend for Spring.
Photos courtesy of Mario Testino/V Magazine and Fame/Flynet.
Justin Bieber no longer looks like himself, but Kristen does.
She looks like Bieber!
She sounds high as shit (no shade), but I also understand what she means about “replenishing the well.”
One of my spiritual teachers was known for the saying, “drink as you pour.” As in, you absolutely have to cultivate your own inner peace in order to keep putting shit out into the world and serving other people. Kristin does that with mediation, I mediate and practice yoga, but it can look like anything you want it to. My boyfriend likes to take care of his plants to “replenish the well.”
As far as the “texting with a shadow” stuff, I think she’s commenting on the fact that, when we text, we don’t hear tone of voice. We don’t see facial expressions. We know what we mean on our side of the conversation, because we’re the ones saying it. But we don’t have any way of knowing what the other person actually means, so we have to interpret it without tone or facial cues. Ergo, talking to ourselves and a shadow.
ETA: I can’t believe I spent so much thought power interpreting Kristen Stewart’s HighDeas this morning. *Shrugs* my work is done for the day, there are worse things I could do
Shambles you are a gem!!!!
I appreciate your analysis and co-sign.
I too am a yoga practicer/meditator and it’s imperative to keep our space in order to be in this space..
Sending ya an inter web high five 🙂
High five and Namaste!
Giggling at HighDeas. Need all the Lols I can get at the moment so thank you.
I totally agree. Good insights! I think Kristen has trouble articulating but actually does have some deep thoughts. Also weed.
Why is she walking so far ahead of Stella in that last pic?
I interpret shadow to mean a shadow of what the other person’s replies to you are because it is in text and therefore you can only approximate what they are trying to say
Her girlfriend is ridiculously pretty, good god. I don’t mind Kristen, but she tries too hard during interviews to sound educated and artsy. It doesn’t always translate to print.
Stewart is actually turning out to being a very well regarded actress. Whodathunk it?😉
I have seen a couple of her recent movies and while i think she was surprisingly good i would say its mainly that she is actually working with talented film makers now as opposed to.. you know ..Twilight. I love olivier Assayas work from way before Kristen started appearing in his movies.
I still don’t think she has much range. She plays that kind of monotone character quite well that works in offbeat indie movies but she doesn’t really seem to have much more up her sleeve.
Yes to that. She was suprisingly good in some of her recent work with good film directors. However, I do think she needs to work on her body, she is so nervous that she will not have much range if she keeps having that same body language.
But I am sure she will develop her range. She is young and finding herself as a person and affirming it out there.
And she is incredibly beautiful in a non-conventional way.
I agree with what you said mostly but i don’t see her as an unconventional beauty at all. I think she’s actually beautiful in a pretty conventional classic way, its just that her body language is so awkward that she doesn’t carry herself like she is.
I’d agree with that. She really hasn’t played outside of her comfort zone. She always seems to play a twitchy, nervous, disaffected type. She can be very good within her wheelhouse, but it’s a relatively small house, and she hasn’t shown a lot of inclination to move out of it. Perhaps that’s smart, for now.
@Leah, maybe that’s it. She does not behave like conventional beauties do and I I really commend her for that. Although she is striking and desirable etc.
She was very well thought of before Twilight as well, I think. I’m sure she wasn’t great in those films, she can’t have been worse than Jennifer Lawrence was in the X Men movies. Doesn’t mean either aren’t great actors with better material.
We saw Theo James on the London stage last month, and he was astonishingly good. Really, really talented. I’d gone to see it actively expecting him to be poor, if I’m honest, because all I knew about him was Underworld and Divergent. It’s a shame that actors get judged by making franchise movies in that sort of way, when they have no control over the end product, and directors with such movies may have more on their minds when cutting than showcasing the best acting possible. If it’s even possible for all actors to do well with green screens and a shoddy script – I mean, look at the mess Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman made of their roles in the Star Wars films; all great actors, all badly let down by the filmmakers.
I do think lawrence has more range though or at least attempts to have more range. She was very understated in winters bone but she can do larger characters as well. Not everything is successful but she is a braver actress than kristen which i think is vital in order to develop. You gotta take some chances and risk looking foolish. Kristen seems to stay very much within her comfort zone. I do enjoy her indie work though.
I was actually wondering what Theo James was up to these days! What play is it? I can also google of course… 😉
@Slowsnow Sex With Strangers (sounds prurient, but in the play it’s the name of a blog his character runs). It’s closed now as it was a short run at a smallish arts theatre in north London.
I felt vaguely guilty afterwards. I should know better than to reverse-halo actors in less than excellent screen work, when you consider how hard it is for them to find employment at all. He can really, really act. I’ll definitely check out work he’s in in future if it sounds otherwise appealing, and I hope he gets to make movies that reflect his ability.
@Leah I agree Lawrence is a very fine actor. I don’t really know much about Stewart’s range. She was excellent in Sils Maria, and that’s all I’ve seen other than Panic Room when she was a little girl. My point was more that she may have range we don’t know about, because people are judging her by Twilight. Obviously if you’ve seen a lot of her work you’re more able to assess that than I.
Theo James was on a short-lived network drama here in the states called Golden Boy, which I started watching on a streaming site for no other reason than finding him handsome and he showed a lot of promise. In particular, he listens well. That sounds odd, but a lot of actors listen with a fixed expression until directed to respond (you can see him do this in Divergent), but on Golden Boy he was very good at microexpressions, and conveying the information one normally conveys when listening. It’s hard to explain, it wasn’t showy or distracting, it was just pleasantly natural. It’s not a bad show, they put together a nice ensemble, but it got cancelled right as it got its sea legs.
Like i said in my original comment her work in the twilight franchise seemed to be in some part a reflection on the franchise and film makers.
I have seen quite a lot of Kristens work and i would say that she always does well in characters were she is somewhat aloof/awkard or monotone in a contemporary setting but put her in a movie where there are bigger emotions required or a period movie and she struggles with tone and body language, that is what i meant by range.
By the way Theo James trained at the prestigious acting school Bristol Old Vic, hes actually got solid grounding as an actor.
My computer must be high because Stella looks like she’s floating in that second pic.
She does! I bet she’s running to catch up to K-Stew
Man, I really can’t relate to these artsy people at all. I don’t even mean that in a nasty way (okay, mostly) but I simply don’t know what to do with this. She is always so hyperfocused on herself. I’m itching to tell her to just get on with it, goddamn it. Some things just need to be done. There’s a job to do. Do it and move on. And then maybe focus on something or someone else for a change.
“But with text and social media, it’s essentially a dialogue with yourself and your interpretation of a shadow.”
Yes. You keep going back to your posts, seeing if someone liked or replied to them. You filter and edit your own photos – your own life. Social media is a paranoid relationship with yourself and the shadow of others who are replying but really, really want you to check them out, through posts and not RL.
A guy invented an app – taken down by instagram in minutes – that liked everything as you scrolled down. It was an immediate success. Because it’s not about what others post, it’s about self-validation.
And please stop with the ‘artsy’ commentary. For someone who enjoys words and works with art, I am so sick of the stigmatisation of people who like to say things in a more poetic way. I prefer if someone comes off a bit clumsy but concerned than PR savvy and bland.
Oh come on. I enjoy words. I do not enjoy endless navel-gazing. There’s poetic and then there’s self-involved. And it’s your perspective and opinion that makes it one or the other. Your poetic is my annoying.
I do agree on the social media comment, both with her and you. Instagram is wonderful and horrifying at the same time. I think you need a tight grip on your own sanity to not let it control you.
Ok you’re entitled to your own annoyances of course. I just take issue with the word ‘artsy’, not what you were saying: of course one cannot control when things rub someone the wrong way or if you sense nave-gazing in a celeb. You might just be right about KStew!
It’s just that in my life I have had my real interest in art and books, and philosophy and perhaps unusual thinking (although I don’t find myself original at all) dismissed as artsy. And it so happens I work with art and write about it. So it kinda wakes up old ghosts.
Thank you! I appreciate what Kirsten had to say too. Also the film she is promoting is based on a premise of a text relationship with someone who could possibly be from the afterlife, I think that’s why this topic was brought up.
Thank you ! I was going to say that Stella’s so high she’s levitating, what’s that about!?
Agree with Moon above – I think that comment was about how over the phone you hear their tone, their intonation etc whereas in a text you are making your own interpretation of what that person means – filling in the gaps yourself on tone – and responding based on that.
When I think of the social media “shadow” she refers to, I think of how basically what most people seem to do on Instagram, FB and Twitter is curate their own existence for other people’s consumption. So who the hell can know what is really and truly going on with anyone?
I don’t do Twitter or Instagram, and I’ve hardly been on FB lately because I’m dealing with my husband’s serious illness and I can’t really relate to much of what’s out there. It’s interesting, though, in retrospect, to think about the sort of things I used to post and the motivation behind that. These days I have to shake my head and laugh at myself for having felt the need to publicly check in at a barre studio or post a photo of some plate of something at some restaurant. Seems so dumb.
So sad yo read about your husband. Sending out good vibes! I loved reading your new perspective on things.
Karl Lagerfeld is “kind”? He’s a lot of things but kind isn’t one of them.
I suspect he’s kind or perhaps nice to people he likes, only.
He is mad, but I have a bit of a soft spot for him after watching a documentary behind the scenes of one of his shows. He has a head seamstress who has been with him his whole career and whom he adores. She is like a little Italian Nonna. Karl said without her he would be nothing.
I’ll bet that if she suddenly gained 10 pounds, he wouldn’t be all that kind and understanding to her.
Well, he’s kind to Choupette. Humans, not so much.
I get a gross feeling whenever I’m told to like a person because they are really good at appearing like they don’t care.
Is she still around?
The cover pic is absolutely stunning! Also, gorgeous couple.
Hate the haircut and the blonde hair on her. She look like she’s trying too hard to be taken seriously.
I dunno… I’ve never liked her. She sets my teeth on edge.