In celebration of Interview’s 40th anniversary, we askedactor, director, writer, and photographer Dennis Hopper—whose connection to the magazine reaches across all fourdecades—to handle the interviewing duties for this cover story. He graciously obliged. He spoke to Stewart, who was shooting Eclipse in Vancouver, from the set of his cable series, Crash, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
DENNIS HOPPER: Before we start, I have a little six-year-old daughter here who’s going crazy right now because you’re on the phone. Could I just put her on for a second to say hello?
KRISTEN STEWART: Yeah, sure.
HOPPER: Okay, her name is Galen. [hands phone]
GALEN HOPPER: Hi!
STEWART: Hi! How are you?
GALEN: Good.
STEWART: It’s really nice to meet you, Galen. [pause] Hello?
GALEN: Hi!
HOPPER: [takes phone] She’s so excited.
STEWART: Wow, that made me so nervous!
HOPPER: It made you nervous?
STEWART: Yeah. I’m just sort of intimidated by kids. I didn’t know what to say.
HOPPER: Well, thank you for doing that. So how are you doing?
STEWART: I’m pretty good. I’m not very good at interviews, but this is a trip. Why in god’s name did you want to do this? You have no idea how cool this is for me.
HOPPER: Well, you’re a really good actress. And my daughter is your biggest fan, so I thought, What the hell? [laughs] I usually don’t do this, either. But you must be going through a lot right now, the way Twilight is hitting. You must have no peace at all.
STEWART: The sad thing is that I feel so boring because Twilight is literally how every conversation I have these days begins—whether it’s someone I’m meeting for the first time or someone I just haven’t seen in a while. The first thing I want to say to them is, “It’s insane! And, as a person, I can’t do anything!” But then I think to myself, God damn it, shut the fuck up.
HOPPER: [both laugh] You know, you’re giving really wonderful performances. Since you didn’t know you’d be making sequels when you were making the first Twilight, has it been difficult for you to get back into character for these new ones?
STEWART: I’ve actually always been interested in following a character more long term, but the only place to really do that as an actor is on a TV series. But the Twilight series is cool because you know what’s ahead of you—all of the books have been written. And I get breaks in between. It’s sort of a depressing thing to lose a character just when you’ve been able to get to know her. Usually, at the end of a film it’s like I’ve finally gotten to know this person completely, and then we’re done. That actually happened on the set of Twilight, and then it happened again on New Moon. Each time my character Bella became a different person, and I got to know that person and take her to the next level.
HOPPER: Have you been able to enjoy it? Or do you feel more pressure doing these sequels?
STEWART: I do feel more of a pressurized strain than what is typical for me. Usually, what drives you is your own personal responsibility to the script and the character and the people you are working with. But in this case, I have a responsibility not only to that but to everyone who has personal involvement in the books—and now that spans the world. It’s an insane concept. There are certain things in Twilight . . . As much as I’m proud of that movie and I do like it, I feel like maybe I brought too much of myself to the character. I feel like I really know Bella now. But most readers feel like they know Bella because it’s a first-person narrative. She’s like a little vessel and everyone experiences the story through her. All of these girls who are fans personally feel like they encapsulate that character. So it’s like, “How the hell am I going to do that for all of them? It’s impossible!” But I’ve decided, if you’re just unabashedly honest all of the time, you have nothing to be ashamed of.
HOPPER: These Twilight books have some dark material.
STEWART: But the movies aren’t that dark, as much as we’d all have loved to have made those films. But as pretty as it is to watch and as nice as it is to have watched these two characters find solace in each other, everything around them is absolute chaos. I mean, you have to question their motivations—to watch two people so unhealthily devoted to each other . . . I stand behind everything that they do. I have to justify it in my mind, or else I couldn’t play the character. But they are definitely not the most pragmatic characters. The weirdest fucking themes run through this story—like dominance and masochism. I mean, you always have to realize that the story needs to make sense to the 11-year-olds who read the book and aren’t necessarily going to be viewing a scene as foreplay. But then there is the other segment of the audience—a large percentage—who does see the scene as foreplay. And it’s pretty deep, heady foreplay. [laughs] So it’s fun to play it both ways. I mean, I don’t know what it feels like to make out with my vampire boyfriend because it isn’t something that anybody has ever felt. But it’s funny to think that a lot of the audience is 10 years old and will maybe one day grow up to realize there are a lot of involved thoughts in Twilight that they didn’t see before.
You can check out some of the great pics they did for their photo shoot and read the entire interview here.
