Kristen Stewart Once Felt Like She Handled Her Childhood Fame Like a ‘Freak’
Although Kristen Stewart became an A-lister thanks to Twilight, she originally shot to stardom after being in the film Panic Room. But looking back on her earlier years, Stewart felt she might not have handled her fame in the best way.
Kristen Stewart almost quit being an actor at an early age
Stewart had been fascinated with acting from a young age. Her interest in the art form was partially influenced by her parents, who were both a part of the entertainment industry. With her mother a scriptwriter and her father a film director, she ended up following in her family’s footsteps in a different way.
The Spencer actor officially got her start while performing in a school play. An agent took notice of Stewart and approached her for representation. But after a year of being sent on auditions, she’d only landed one commercial. The lack of opportunities eventually left Stewart so frustrated that she nearly gave up.
“I decided a year after not getting any commercials, ‘F*** it. I won’t make my mom drive around Los Angeles anymore,'” Stewart once said in an interview with Newsweek. “I also got so nervous for every single audition. I was just dying. I had one appointment left and my mom said, ‘Have a little integrity and go to your last one.’ And it was The Safety of Objects. If I hadn’t gotten that, I would have been done.”
Kristen Stewart once felt she handled fame like a freak
Stewart’s persistence eventually paid off when she landed one of her first major roles in Panic Room. In the 2002 David Fincher feature, the young actor co-starred alongside Jodie Foster as a mother and daughter fending off home invaders.
After her time shooting the film, Stewart experienced her first brush with fame at a very early age. But in hindsight, she didn’t like the way she originally handled the spotlight.
“People would come up to me when I was eating with my family in a restaurant or something, and I would always just curl up into myself in a ridiculous manner,” she once said in an interview with Radio Times (via Independent). “My family would be so embarrassed and it would be like, ‘Kristen, what are you doing? Just be nice and say hello.’ And I honestly don’t know what my problem was.”
What made her reaction to fame even odder for Stewart was that typically she didn’t mind interacting with people.
“I think it’s natural that 13-year-olds can be pretty insecure but what’s unnatural about it was that I wasn’t insecure,” she said. “I loved talking to people, normally….It’s just fame. That’s what I had a really hard time with.”
As time went on, the Oscar-nominee believed the way she handled fame influenced others’ opinion of her.
“I was such a freak with all that stuff in the beginning and that’s why everyone thought I was such a weirdo. I was definitely overly self-conscious,” she added.
Why Kristen Stewart believed that being famous was kind of lonely
Stewart has admitted to having some difficulty adjusting to her fame and celebrity in the past. The actor felt that being famous could create an unwanted boundary between herself and others.
“Actors become so isolated. It’s like people aren’t allowed to talk to us. Like if you’re a big star, or whatever, if you’re like a famous person, it’s kind of lonely. Like people don’t want to talk to you,” she once told Loaded (via Toronto).
She went on to further discuss why she felt being a movie star wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“I think it’s people who want to be movie stars – and this is such bullshit – but the life really is a huge driving force in so many actors and actresses. Solely. And they won’t be happy at the end, because they’re not doing anything for themselves, everything is for someone else. They’re always appeasing and always satisfying and always trying to do something to stay at this level,” she added.
