TWILIGHT'S KRISTEN STEWART - TEEN VOGUE December / January 2008

Kristen Stewart sinks her teeth into a lead role as the unlikely heroine of megahit book turned film Twilight

Kristen Stewart’s TEEN VOGUE cover shoot took place by the beach in sunny Malibu, California – a far cry from the dreary coastal city of Portland, Oregon, where most of the actress’s latest project, the dark thriller Twilight, was filmed. Kristen snagged the leading role after a four-hour audition with indie director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown). And after almost a decade in the business – including a series of impressive roles in films such as Panic Room with Jodie Foster, Into the Wild the Emile Hirsch and the indie film In the Land of Women – she finally has a project that might just prove to be her first bona fide blockbuster.

Twilight is the hotly anticipated adaptation of author Stephanie Meyer’s smash-hit debut novel – all four titles in the now-complete series continue to be best sellers – but before Kristen got the script she had never even heard of the books. “ I guess I was just living under rocks and mountains,” she says cheerfully. “And though we were warned, I figured it would be a pretty exclusive fan base. I thought we were making a cult movie; I had no idea it was going to be this, like, phenomenon.”

Despite having Kristen’s merits debated on Internet message boards before she had even shot a frame of film, she is almost improbably perfect to play the part of Bella Swan, a recently relocated high school junior who falls in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson. “Bella’s a very relatable girl,” says Kristen. “She inhabits qualities that most girls have, even if it’s not on the surface.” Physically, Kristen works: she is capable of being both slightly plain (as Bella feels) and impossibly beautiful (as Edward sees her). “What I love about the story and what puts it on a different level is that it’s ‘chemical’…there’s nobody else for either of them. Period.” The romance, which Kristen describes as “unworldly but not fake,” was a big draw. She did, on occasion, draw from her own romantic life – she’s been with boyfriend Michael Angarano “forever” as she puts it.

Kristen lived in an apartment on her own for the first time while shooting Twilight. “You are an insane person after you wrap a movie!”, she says. “Especially with Twilight. You spend three and a half months living the story. We all had one main goal, we were all equally invested and focused – it was just a very intertwined experience.”

What about Kristen’s take on fashion? “If I’m just chilling out, then people can see me any which way, but it’s different when you’re putting yourself together to do something professionally,” she says. “You’re under a lot of scrutiny,” she admits. “It’s a bizarre thing, to me, to consider that what I wear or what I do with my hair, can affect my career.” But Kristen respects the process and takes it in stride. “I’m not the type of person who has a million things in my closet to put together, so I’ve begun to work with a stylist and we’ve started to figure out what I like. Simple, classically pretty things; I love Chanel.”

You can catch Kristen as Bella Swan in Twilight, on November 21, 2008. You can also see Kristen in the upcoming coming-of-age comedy Adventureland with Ryan Reynolds in 2009. The Dec/Jan 2008 issue of TEEN VOGUE is on sale nationwide November 18, 2008.

Meet the cast of Twilight:

Bonus Interviews with Kristen Stewart and the cast of Twilight