[IMG:L]Wise beyond her years, teen thespian Kristen Stewart first splashed onto the silver screen at age 10, with an outstanding performance in Panic Room (2002), alongside Oscar-winning co-star Jodie Foster. But there’d be no need to worry about her career, as the pensive actress made a series of fine acting choices, thereafter.
Although her credits include a handful of smaller parts in films such as Cold Creek Manor (2003), Zathura (2005) and Fierce People (2006), it’s her upcoming performance in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, which will inevitably command the attention of audiences and critics. Stewart portrays Tracy, an innocent free-spirited Slab City native who falls for bohemian Chris McCandless, during his brief stay at a commune. Showcasing her vocal and instrumental talents, she also puts on a moving performance with her guitar and soothing voice.
Stewart and Into the Wild stars William Hurt, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, director Sean Penn and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, who provided the film’s rebellious score, talk with Hollywood.com about flexing their acting muscles, shooting in extreme tempertatures, young stardom in Hollywood and more.
[IMG:L]Q&A with Kristen Stewart
“I don’t want to study acting … If I ever think about something too hard, I will leave the scene after we are done shooting and it’s like: ‘I didn’t go through that. That’s not real. I didn’t just go through that and I faked it.’ It’s like the most unfulfilling, awful feeling. You beat yourself up about it. So I couldn’t do acting school just because I can’t think about it. It’s like if you are telling a story and you feel it, and you relate to this person, and you feel like you want to tell it in a certain way–it’s just going to happen.” (Read interview)
[IMG:L]Q&A with William Hurt
“My advice is go to school, get an education and then learn the craft of acting. It’s hard. It’s something that you are in control of. You choose the circumstances, your base and then inform your base–and that way you’ve got something to stand on. Actors think that they have to take it on a plate, but you don’t. You can go and make tools in your head, in your heart and in your body. Then the tools stand by you.” (Read interview)
[IMG:L]Q&A with Jena Malone
“I never studied acting. I read a few books and I was a little put off by them. I don’t know, everyone has a different practice. For me, I created my craft as I went along. I created my structure. I created my rules and I created my rituals. I keep them in a bag on the side. Those rules–not only do I create–sometimes come from watching other actors and seeing how they practice and…focus in the midst of a chaotic environment.” (Read interview)
[IMG:L]Q&A with Emile Hirsch
“As much as the physical training was really important–running, weight lifting and hiking–there was also a mental kind of exercising of reading a lot. Kind of rigid hours. Always reading, every day. Whether it would be Jack London’s Call of the Wild or Henry James/Theroux–or reading Walden and getting into that whole world. That kind of mental discipline would turn out to be really, really important through out the whole shoot.” (Read interview)
[IMG:L]Q&A with Sean Penn
“When I buy a Nikon camera, I have no tolerance for the instructions. I’m ready to make some mistakes using it and get some bad pictures back until I’ve figured it out for myself. I guarantee that if you do it that way, by the time you learn it, you learn it better than any instructions will tell you.” (Read interview)
Q&A with Eddie Vedder
“One of the directions that Sean gave me [when Chris is] leaving the bus, before he gets to the river and the river is overflowing, just a short little note he sent up, and he said, ‘On this scene, don’t be afraid to be too literal with the lyrics. He knows he’s leaving, he knows he’s leaving the bus, and he’s not going back to his parents, and he’s not going back to f*ck the 16 year old girl (I don’t know why).'” (Read interview)
[IMG:L]Premiere Photos
On the red carpet at the premiere of Into the Wild at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles with stars Sean Penn , Kristen Stewart, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, and others. (View gallery)
