Kristen Stewart has now participated in the moviemaking process in front of and behind the camera, so she knows what’s easier: being an actress or being a director. And it doesn’t even come close.
“Actresses get treated like s—, I’ve got to tell you,” the Twilight, Crimes of the Future, and Personal Shopper star said in an interview with The Times published Saturday.
Stewart explained that “people think anyone could be an actress, but the first time I sat down to talk about my movie as a director, I thought, ‘Wow, this is a different experience, they are talking to me like I’m somebody with a brain.'”
Peter Sorel/Summitt
Stewart has been remarkably candid about what she sees as glaring gender disparities in the film industry since helming her first film, The Chronology of Water.
“There’s this idea that directors have otherworldly abilities, which is not true. It’s an idea perpetuated by men,” she told The Times. “Not to sound like I’m complaining all the time, but it’s worse for female actors than male ones — they get treated like puppets, but they are not.”
When asked if it might have been easier to make the gritty coming-of-age drama had she been a man, Stewart responded, “If I was a man, I wouldn’t have made this movie… We have to deny our physicality every single day, and there is so much — like birth — that is so painful and also quite beautiful, but we don’t share it, because it is uncomfortable and icky.”
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Before The Chronology of Water even premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last May, Stewart was raising her voice to call out disparities she believes are holding back more women from picking up cameras for themselves.
“There’s this bulls— fallacy that you need to have experience or sort of like technical adeptness, and it’s safeguarding the business. It’s a real male perspective,” she said at the time. “Like, as if it’s this difficult thing to do. Anyone can make a movie if they have something to say.”
Les Films du Losange
Stewart adapted The Chronology of Water from the 2011 hybrid memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch. The film stars Imogen Poots as a young Yuknavitch, who strains to escape an abusive upbringing through competitive swimming in college, all the while battling addiction and discovering a knack for writing.
Though she could easily direct more indie movies after Chronology of Water, Stewart also recently confirmed that she’s “committed” to the idea of directing a remake of the film that made her famous, Twilight.
