Julianne Moore Once Predicted Kristen Stewart’s Superstardom
Kristen Stewart became one of Hollywood’s most popular names thanks to the Twilight franchise and other films. Although her rise might have been surprising to some, actor Julianne Moore knew Stewart would succeed early on.
Kristen Stewart on her acting process
When Stewart first started acting at a young age, she wasn’t sure an actual acting career was something she wanted to pursue. The only thing she was conscious of at that time was that she enjoyed the work. But because of her natural talent for it, Stewart became more and more attracted to the profession.
“It was the first thing I ever thrived at. My parents are crew. They were both baffled that I wanted to act. But they support anything that me and my brothers want to do. It was something I thought was fun because I grew up on sets,” Stewart once said on Interview.
Stewart made the right choice in following her passion, as her career has awarded her much good fortune and prestige.
Apart from her success, she’s received much recognition for her performances, even earning a recent Oscar-nomination. Stewart’s accomplishments may come from the fact that she takes great care to immerse herself in a role. So much so that she never sees herself as simply “playing” a character.
“‘Play’ sounds like ‘lie’ to me, and I’m just trying to do the opposite,” she once told IndieWire.
Stewart felt that she does something entirely different than playing a part.
“When you ‘play’ something, it’s like you’re constructing something and you’re trying to manipulate other people into feeling a certain way,” she said. “I never want to feel like I’m forcing something, because that means I’m kind of failing.”
Julianne Moore predicted Kristen Stewart would become a success
Perhaps even before Stewart knew how successful she’d become, fellow actor Julianne Moore had faith in Stewart’s potential. She’d known about Stewart ever since the Twilight star was a child actor. Her husband, filmmaker Bartholomew Freundlich, once cast Stewart in one of his earlier movies. After seeing what Stewart was capable of, the filmmaker raved about Stewart’s performance to his wife.
“You know, I’m not surprised by Kristen at all,” Moore once said in a 2014 IndieWire interview. “And people keep asking me that question, but they don’t know that I’ve known Kristen since she was 12 years old. So she made a movie with my husband when she was 12, and I can remember when he was casting it, and he’s like: ‘This girl I want to work with. This girl is extraordinary. She is going to be a huge star, she’s a major talent.'”
Because of endorsements like these, Moore had no doubt that Stewart would leave her mark in Hollywood.
“So there was never any question in my mind that Kristen wouldn’t – I always knew how special she was,” she added.
Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart worked together in ‘Still Alice’
Still Alice was a 2014 film about a language professor who discovers that she’s developing Alzheimer’s. Moore would lead the film as the titular character, co-starring alongside Stewart. Working together on the project, both actors noticed techniques the other displayed that left an impression. Moore was especially impressed by Stewart’s ability to access her emotions.
“What was a pleasure for me, working with her, is to witness somebody that’s got that enormous reserve of emotion at their fingertips. It’s just right there…you know she’s only 24 years old, and she’s a young person. But she has a remarkable degree of maturity and compassion,” Moore said.
Meanwhile, Stewart was also fascinated by Moore’s ability to transcend the technical approach to acting.
“I’m a kid, so it sounds silly for me to speak to this, but I have watched a lot of people do this. I was really fueled by the fact that she really likes to straddle the emotional and spontaneous and scary side with the controlled and prepared side,” Stewart once told Collider. “Once she’s there, she lets herself be there.”
