Kristen Stewart on Snow White and the Huntsman

The Twilight star spills on her upcoming role in the action flick based on the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale.
Is there something you really admire about Snow White? 

Yes. It's strange playing a character that you could never truly embody. I can't have Snow White's effect on people. I can't actually be completely selfless because nobody is. You can only really play a character like that in a fairytale and play it with an awful lot of integrity.

She's a very fully formed but "very farfetched from the reality that we live in" type of person. She also is strong in a very different way than you'd expect.

Do you mean the strength of character? 

I mean, like she's strong. She can kick ass. But you're not watching going, "Yeah! Kill him!"

Really, it's more like you're watching someone having to do something that doesn't just go against your sensibilities or that you agree with. It's gutting.


Do you like that she's not like your prissy fairytale? 

She is prissy sometimes. It takes her the whole movie to become who I'm talking about now. It's a total identity movie, all about not finding yourself, but actually just being okay with who you know you always have been. It's an enormous burden and she's so stunted. She was put away when she was seven years old and her mother and father were killed basically right in front of her and we're not doing the version of a fairytale where you just sort of skim over those things.

She literally bleeds for her land and her people, and that's a cool concept for me because it's other people caring about people. Every day you see people not caring about each other, and this is just about that.

She's a very fully formed but "very farfetched from the reality that we live in" type of person. She also is strong in a very different way than you'd expect.

Does she learn to be a leader or is she born a leader inside?

She's definitely a born leader. It's literally pumping through those veins, but it's been taken from her.


Is it helping you to wear these cool costumes? 

Absolutely. If you look down and something doesn't feel like you would definitely be wearing it or if you go to grab your knife and it flops around... I also have puffy sleeves. Somehow she manages to make puffy sleeves look butch. I was really happy that she's got something heavy on—a bit of armor before she actually finds her own armor.

How did you feel the first time you put on the armor?

Yeah. The first thing you wanna do is [hits chest and screams]. There's something kind of dainty about it, too. It fits a woman's body better, I feel. I don't know, the guys running around suddenly look like little toys—slightly feminine little toys.


This is the second time you're playing someone who is led out into the woods to be given bad news. Which is harder, realizing that you're going to die or realizing that the person you love doesn't love you? 

Well, it's funny. I think Snow White genuinely lacks that innate fear of death that we all have. What's harder is to have dreams and hopes that you lived with your whole life sort of be just shattered in front of you. Only that hope doesn't exist anymore and you've got to explain to people that it's so worth fighting for.

I think it's totally impossible to compare the two. Because being broken up with, especially in that context [of Twilight] was one of the hardest things I've ever had to play.


Can you compare the movies in general? 

Bella and Snow White are slightly—they both come to find that they're leaders. They're very, very, very different people. Everyone's telling them "No." And both of them see the light. Both of them are more intuitive and spiritually for whatever reason connected and their gut is always sort of dead right.


What was your favorite fairytale as a kid? 

I knew you were going to say that. I honestly don't—I was obsessed with "The Jungle Book."

Chris is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and he was always like humming Enya and we were trudging up the mountain.

How was it punching (co-star) Chris Hemsworth? You accidentally punched him for real?

I don't like punching anyone. So, you know when you dream and your hand just slides right down their face, it doesn't do that in real life. That really made me feel horrible, though. I mean, like instantly hot tears and I was like "Oops!"

teenvogue
xoxo
Carrie