logo
Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

The Age4 days ago
When Kristen Stewart read Lidia Yuknavitch's cult memoir The Chronology of Water, she immediately felt herself to be part of the writer's tribe. 'There are certain pieces that unlock you, whether it's a book or a movie or a relationship you have or just a conversation you have with someone, that can lead you to understand you aren't listening to yourself the way you should be,' she says.
Yuknavitch's book surges forward from her childhood with an abusive father and permanently sedated mother, through youthful addiction and tortured relationships, to her realisation – guided by her mentor, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey – that she is a writer. Stewart was only halfway through reading it when she contacted Yuknavitch to ask if she could make it into a film. Speaking in Cannes, where her adaptation was screening at the annual film festival, she calls the book 'a lifesaving piece of material'.
'This book is like the keys to your own castle. And I thought when I read it that if I had this relationship to it, I couldn't be alone. It's such a personal interaction you have with reading a book, but I wanted to do it out loud and with other people.'
Stewart, 35, has been famous – and famously uncomfortable with it – since playing a young woman in love with a vampire in the $US3.3 billion Twilight saga. Being Bella Swan made her reportedly the highest-paid actress in the world. Since that franchise wrapped in 2012, however, she has worked largely outside the mainstream, with independent directors including Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014, for which she won a French Cesar), Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women in 2016) and Pablo Larrain (the 2021 film Spencer, an extraordinary performance that earned her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations). For a good chunk of that time she was also working on The Chronology of Water.
Loading
It was a formidable challenge, but nothing could dissuade her. 'I've been associated with [producer] Charles Gillibert since I was 20. He told me when I sent him this script years ago, 'You should not do this: it's too big; it's too expensive; find something more personal'. And I said, 'Honestly, if you say that to me again, we're not going to be friends any more'.' There were screaming matches but, in the end, he backed her.
'And he didn't believe in it. I know that. I know him! But he did it anyway because I wanted it so much.' In Cannes, it seemed the gamble had paid off: reviews were glowing.
Stewart always brings a kinetic energy to her performances. In person, she is intense, agitated, fiercely alive and not a little unnerving. The Chronology of Water shares these qualities. What could be made as a conventional biopic – albeit of a fictionalised figure, since Stewart says The Chronology of Water isn't actually a literal document of Yuknavitch's life – is chopped about, shuffled and fractured, so that we must actively piece it together. There are scenes that flash backward and forward in time, like a metronome swinging between what just happened and what is about to happen. Simple actions are sliced up with jump-cuts; random sounds stream in from past scenes. 'Time,' says Stewart, 'is so non-linear.'
At the heart of the melee is Imogen Poots, now 36, but playing Lidia from her teenage years as a high-school swimming champion to middle age. It is a vast span of years for any actor to try to cover, but she manages it by sheer force of conviction.
Loading
'She really had skin in the game,' says Stewart. 'She's been acting as long as I have – and therefore I know there are roles and safeguards and ways she has figured out how to protect the more tender parts of herself.
'And that actually doesn't make for a good performance. But there is a whole cycle of holding back and letting go – and I just got her in the perfect moment. We looked at each other and she said, 'I think I just want to let it all out, lay it all on the line'.
'Then we made it like a sports movie. She got two hernias making this movie, Literally, two! But she didn't tell me 'til afterwards. And I was like, 'You're out of your f---ing mind, why didn't you tell me?' And she said, 'I didn't want you to pull the leash. I didn't want you to think I couldn't do it.' I love her so much.'
The production was fraught in other ways. Stewart's scattered description suggests that her long-gestating script, written with Andy Mingo, was binned almost immediately they began shooting.
'The movie was a total shipwreck,' she says. 'I had constructed what I thought was this unsinkable Titanic. And immediately it became a paper boat on the ocean. We were looking at death every day' – of her perfect script, of her careful preparation, of her treasured images – 'which is totally what the movie is about, a rebirth after losing something.'
Loading
People told her that first films always felt like that. No, she says. This was worse. 'It was a precarious situation.' She and the cinematographer, Corey Waters, 'free-jazzed' the movie she had in her mind's eye. In Waters, she says, she discovered a brother. Other department heads were sacked and replaced during production. That was risky, obviously, but 'essential to protect the movie and create the life that it has'.
'And it's such a lucky thing the movie was getting f---ed. When I got back from the shoot, I realised I was opening all these gifts. The movie had a life of its own, so it had a memory. And once we had created all of the pictures, they had an emotional connectivity and sense memory that you could see.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it
Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

Sydney Morning Herald

time4 days ago

  • Sydney Morning Herald

Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

When Kristen Stewart read Lidia Yuknavitch's cult memoir The Chronology of Water, she immediately felt herself to be part of the writer's tribe. 'There are certain pieces that unlock you, whether it's a book or a movie or a relationship you have or just a conversation you have with someone, that can lead you to understand you aren't listening to yourself the way you should be,' she says. Yuknavitch's book surges forward from her childhood with an abusive father and permanently sedated mother, through youthful addiction and tortured relationships, to her realisation – guided by her mentor, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey – that she is a writer. Stewart was only halfway through reading it when she contacted Yuknavitch to ask if she could make it into a film. Speaking in Cannes, where her adaptation was screening at the annual film festival, she calls the book 'a lifesaving piece of material'. 'This book is like the keys to your own castle. And I thought when I read it that if I had this relationship to it, I couldn't be alone. It's such a personal interaction you have with reading a book, but I wanted to do it out loud and with other people.' Stewart, 35, has been famous – and famously uncomfortable with it – since playing a young woman in love with a vampire in the $US3.3 billion Twilight saga. Being Bella Swan made her reportedly the highest-paid actress in the world. Since that franchise wrapped in 2012, however, she has worked largely outside the mainstream, with independent directors including Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014, for which she won a French Cesar), Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women in 2016) and Pablo Larrain (the 2021 film Spencer, an extraordinary performance that earned her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations). For a good chunk of that time she was also working on The Chronology of Water. Loading It was a formidable challenge, but nothing could dissuade her. 'I've been associated with [producer] Charles Gillibert since I was 20. He told me when I sent him this script years ago, 'You should not do this: it's too big; it's too expensive; find something more personal'. And I said, 'Honestly, if you say that to me again, we're not going to be friends any more'.' There were screaming matches but, in the end, he backed her. 'And he didn't believe in it. I know that. I know him! But he did it anyway because I wanted it so much.' In Cannes, it seemed the gamble had paid off: reviews were glowing. Stewart always brings a kinetic energy to her performances. In person, she is intense, agitated, fiercely alive and not a little unnerving. The Chronology of Water shares these qualities. What could be made as a conventional biopic – albeit of a fictionalised figure, since Stewart says The Chronology of Water isn't actually a literal document of Yuknavitch's life – is chopped about, shuffled and fractured, so that we must actively piece it together. There are scenes that flash backward and forward in time, like a metronome swinging between what just happened and what is about to happen. Simple actions are sliced up with jump-cuts; random sounds stream in from past scenes. 'Time,' says Stewart, 'is so non-linear.' At the heart of the melee is Imogen Poots, now 36, but playing Lidia from her teenage years as a high-school swimming champion to middle age. It is a vast span of years for any actor to try to cover, but she manages it by sheer force of conviction. Loading 'She really had skin in the game,' says Stewart. 'She's been acting as long as I have – and therefore I know there are roles and safeguards and ways she has figured out how to protect the more tender parts of herself. 'And that actually doesn't make for a good performance. But there is a whole cycle of holding back and letting go – and I just got her in the perfect moment. We looked at each other and she said, 'I think I just want to let it all out, lay it all on the line'. 'Then we made it like a sports movie. She got two hernias making this movie, Literally, two! But she didn't tell me 'til afterwards. And I was like, 'You're out of your f---ing mind, why didn't you tell me?' And she said, 'I didn't want you to pull the leash. I didn't want you to think I couldn't do it.' I love her so much.' The production was fraught in other ways. Stewart's scattered description suggests that her long-gestating script, written with Andy Mingo, was binned almost immediately they began shooting. 'The movie was a total shipwreck,' she says. 'I had constructed what I thought was this unsinkable Titanic. And immediately it became a paper boat on the ocean. We were looking at death every day' – of her perfect script, of her careful preparation, of her treasured images – 'which is totally what the movie is about, a rebirth after losing something.' Loading People told her that first films always felt like that. No, she says. This was worse. 'It was a precarious situation.' She and the cinematographer, Corey Waters, 'free-jazzed' the movie she had in her mind's eye. In Waters, she says, she discovered a brother. Other department heads were sacked and replaced during production. That was risky, obviously, but 'essential to protect the movie and create the life that it has'. 'And it's such a lucky thing the movie was getting f---ed. When I got back from the shoot, I realised I was opening all these gifts. The movie had a life of its own, so it had a memory. And once we had created all of the pictures, they had an emotional connectivity and sense memory that you could see.

Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it
Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

The Age

time4 days ago

  • The Age

Kristen Stewart was warned not to make this film. She almost blew it

When Kristen Stewart read Lidia Yuknavitch's cult memoir The Chronology of Water, she immediately felt herself to be part of the writer's tribe. 'There are certain pieces that unlock you, whether it's a book or a movie or a relationship you have or just a conversation you have with someone, that can lead you to understand you aren't listening to yourself the way you should be,' she says. Yuknavitch's book surges forward from her childhood with an abusive father and permanently sedated mother, through youthful addiction and tortured relationships, to her realisation – guided by her mentor, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey – that she is a writer. Stewart was only halfway through reading it when she contacted Yuknavitch to ask if she could make it into a film. Speaking in Cannes, where her adaptation was screening at the annual film festival, she calls the book 'a lifesaving piece of material'. 'This book is like the keys to your own castle. And I thought when I read it that if I had this relationship to it, I couldn't be alone. It's such a personal interaction you have with reading a book, but I wanted to do it out loud and with other people.' Stewart, 35, has been famous – and famously uncomfortable with it – since playing a young woman in love with a vampire in the $US3.3 billion Twilight saga. Being Bella Swan made her reportedly the highest-paid actress in the world. Since that franchise wrapped in 2012, however, she has worked largely outside the mainstream, with independent directors including Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria in 2014, for which she won a French Cesar), Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women in 2016) and Pablo Larrain (the 2021 film Spencer, an extraordinary performance that earned her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations). For a good chunk of that time she was also working on The Chronology of Water. Loading It was a formidable challenge, but nothing could dissuade her. 'I've been associated with [producer] Charles Gillibert since I was 20. He told me when I sent him this script years ago, 'You should not do this: it's too big; it's too expensive; find something more personal'. And I said, 'Honestly, if you say that to me again, we're not going to be friends any more'.' There were screaming matches but, in the end, he backed her. 'And he didn't believe in it. I know that. I know him! But he did it anyway because I wanted it so much.' In Cannes, it seemed the gamble had paid off: reviews were glowing. Stewart always brings a kinetic energy to her performances. In person, she is intense, agitated, fiercely alive and not a little unnerving. The Chronology of Water shares these qualities. What could be made as a conventional biopic – albeit of a fictionalised figure, since Stewart says The Chronology of Water isn't actually a literal document of Yuknavitch's life – is chopped about, shuffled and fractured, so that we must actively piece it together. There are scenes that flash backward and forward in time, like a metronome swinging between what just happened and what is about to happen. Simple actions are sliced up with jump-cuts; random sounds stream in from past scenes. 'Time,' says Stewart, 'is so non-linear.' At the heart of the melee is Imogen Poots, now 36, but playing Lidia from her teenage years as a high-school swimming champion to middle age. It is a vast span of years for any actor to try to cover, but she manages it by sheer force of conviction. Loading 'She really had skin in the game,' says Stewart. 'She's been acting as long as I have – and therefore I know there are roles and safeguards and ways she has figured out how to protect the more tender parts of herself. 'And that actually doesn't make for a good performance. But there is a whole cycle of holding back and letting go – and I just got her in the perfect moment. We looked at each other and she said, 'I think I just want to let it all out, lay it all on the line'. 'Then we made it like a sports movie. She got two hernias making this movie, Literally, two! But she didn't tell me 'til afterwards. And I was like, 'You're out of your f---ing mind, why didn't you tell me?' And she said, 'I didn't want you to pull the leash. I didn't want you to think I couldn't do it.' I love her so much.' The production was fraught in other ways. Stewart's scattered description suggests that her long-gestating script, written with Andy Mingo, was binned almost immediately they began shooting. 'The movie was a total shipwreck,' she says. 'I had constructed what I thought was this unsinkable Titanic. And immediately it became a paper boat on the ocean. We were looking at death every day' – of her perfect script, of her careful preparation, of her treasured images – 'which is totally what the movie is about, a rebirth after losing something.' Loading People told her that first films always felt like that. No, she says. This was worse. 'It was a precarious situation.' She and the cinematographer, Corey Waters, 'free-jazzed' the movie she had in her mind's eye. In Waters, she says, she discovered a brother. Other department heads were sacked and replaced during production. That was risky, obviously, but 'essential to protect the movie and create the life that it has'. 'And it's such a lucky thing the movie was getting f---ed. When I got back from the shoot, I realised I was opening all these gifts. The movie had a life of its own, so it had a memory. And once we had created all of the pictures, they had an emotional connectivity and sense memory that you could see.

Martha Stewart stars in sexy Aussie commercial with mystery man
Martha Stewart stars in sexy Aussie commercial with mystery man

Courier-Mail

time4 days ago

  • Courier-Mail

Martha Stewart stars in sexy Aussie commercial with mystery man

Don't miss out on the headlines from Celebrity Life. Followed categories will be added to My News. Domestic goddess Martha Stewart is one week away from her 84th birthday, but don't expect her to retire to one of her sprawling estates along the US East Coast any time soon. The lifestyle mogul and businesswoman, who in the last 40 years has built a global empire and changed the face of homemaking, is still very much in her prime. Widely regarded as the original influencer, Stewart is much revered for her TV shows, lifestyle books, magazines and product lines that helped make her the first self-made female billionaire in US history. However, the 83-year-old has undergone an evolution of sorts in recent years – and she has welcomed this new direction in her career. Martha Stewart started her business empire in the late 70s from her farmhouse in Connecticut. Picture:Stewart went on to become the first self-made female billionaire in US history. Picture:'I don't call it a reinvention, I call it an evolution,' she tells via Zoom. 'If you're evolving, you're changing. Reinvention means eliminating the past and making something new. But this is very different. This is evolving.' 'I'm the same person. I do pretty much the same things,' she adds. 'I just take everything to a new and different level. I think that that's really evolution, and I like it. I do not like to remain static. I never will. And change is good. It's good for everybody.' Stewart is even embracing her new sex symbol status, which she acquired thanks to that poolside selfie that almost broke the internet in 2020. She mastered the art of 'thirst traps' in the years that followed and, in 2023, she officially solidified her bombshell status by becoming the oldest model to grace the cover of theSports IllustratedSwimsuit Issue. The lifestyle mogul almost broke the internet with this selfie. Picture: Instagram She has since mastered the art of the 'thirst trap'. Picture: Instagram 'I love being admired by men. Why not?' she says when asked about being a sex symbol. Stewart explains that while it's 'great' getting attention from the opposite sex, she makes sure her sexy photos are 'authentic' and aren't damaging to her brand. 'To me, it's all a lighthearted effort at making sure that first of all, your brand is safe, your brand is well admired, people will continue to buy your products and do it without any danger to anybody,' she says. 'That's really an important thing to me.' Stewart poses with the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, where she was the cover star. Picture:In line with her evolution, Stewart is not afraid to step out of the box. In an unexpected move, the lifestyle guru is now the ambassador for Rexona's new Whole Body Deodorant, appearing in a sexy Aussie TV commercial which she secretly filmed at the landmark Crypto Castle in Sydney back in May. A clip of the ad was shared online earlier this week, which featured Stewart in a silk robe with a barely-clad mystery man. But today it was revealed that her Sydney 'tryst' was in fact an ad for Rexona's new Whole Body Deodorant. This clip of Stewart with a mystery man in Sydney was leaked this week. 'I loved making the Rexona commercial at the Crypto Castle. We worked with a great crew who were very funny and had a sense of humour,' she recalls. 'The whole commercial has a really lighthearted sense of humour about it because we're talking about body odour, which is not the sexiest subject matter.' In the ad, Stewart uses her signature dry wit to demonstrate how to apply the deodorant to your thighs, breasts and feet, among other places. 'I know what you're wondering, Australia. And the answer is yes, you can use it 'down under,'' she muses in the Unilever ad. 'The whole idea of something like this, you have to do this with kind of a cheekiness and a forthrightness because we're talking about an all over the body deodorant,' she explains to us. As it turns out, Stewart was filming a commercial for Rexona's new Whole Body Deodorant. The star filmed the ad at the Crypto Castle in South Coogee with a mystery man. And the mogul is speaking from experience. In 1956, aged just 15, Stewart worked as a model and filmed her very first TV commercial for Lifebuoy, which coincidentally was an all-over-the-body deodorant soap also made by Unilever. 'I laughed when was offered this spot for Rexona because it's a similar kind of product, although that was a soap and this is a spray or a cream,' she reflects. 'So I just thought, how funny – full circle. And I thought, 'Oh, that'll be fun.'' Stewart starred in her very first TV commercial for Unilever back in 1956. The star worked as a model at the time. Stewart was just 15 when filming the ad. Stewart was last in Australia in May for the Vivid festival, when she filmed the Rexona commercial. But she has plans to return to our shores in the near future. 'I've been to Australia quite a few times – I've been to Tasmania, Sydney, Melbourne, to other places in and around that, mostly the East Coast,' she says. 'I do want to go to the West Coast, and I haven't had a chance to do that yet. But what I've discovered is the food and the vegetation and the fabulous produce that you produce in Australia, second to no place in the world.' Among the many hats Stewart wears – model, mogul, influencer – there's one that she's taken a liking to: 'Tradwife', aka a woman who embraces traditional values and gender roles. Stewart in front of the Sydney Opera House on May 28, where she took the stage for an In Conversation with Martha Stewart event as part of the Vivid Sydney. Picture:'I've pioneered in a lot of different industries and a lot of different product developments, and I am always willing to step out and do things,' she says. 'I'm now also being known as the original Tradwife.' 'I'm very proud of myself for being a Tradwife, because why not? I mean, I raised my own sheep and my own chickens, made my own hams from my backyard pig, and grew my own vegetables – that's all Tradwife stuff. 'When they affix a name like 'Tradwife', it sounds kind of awful. But it's actually kind of cute. And the Tradwives that are very popular now are the hottest things on earth.' And Stewart has this word of advice for all the Meghan Markles and Gwyneth Paltrows out there trying to emulate her success in the lifestyle space. 'If they can teach as much as I have taught and be as authentic as I have been, then they will be successful,' she says. Originally published as Martha Stewart stars in sexy Aussie ad with mystery man as she embraces sex symbol status at 83

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store