Kristen Stewart Says Twilight Is a 'Gay Movie'

33-year-old actor chats with 'Variety' about embracing her queerness
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 12, 2024 10:07 AM CST
Kristen Stewart Says Twilight Is a 'Gay Movie'
Kristen Stewart is seen at the Berlinale film fest in Berlin on Feb. 25.   (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

It's been 15 years since viewers first got to witness the Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle on the big screen, and now, the actor who plays the female protagonist is looking back on that film with a "fresh perspective," per People. "It's such a gay movie," Kristen Stewart tells Variety in an interview that explores how the 33-year-old "became a queer trailblazer." She adds, "I can only see it now. I don't think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating." Stewart notes that the vibe between herself, Robert Pattinson (the movie franchise's vampire Edward), and Taylor Lautner (werewolf Jacob) in the 2008 film is "so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It's all about oppression, about wanting what's going to destroy you. That's a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love."

In 2019, Stewart revealed to the AP how much pressure she felt after Twilight came out to declare more about her sexuality—a pressure she says she's happy today's young actors don't have as much of. "I felt this huge responsibility, like one that I was really genuinely worried about, if I wasn't able to say one way or the other, then was I sort of like forsaking a side," she said at the time. Much has changed since, with Stewart—who once dated Twilight co-star Pattinson—now fully embracing who she is, including by bringing her fiancee, screenwriter Dylan Meyer, to the 2022 Academy Awards. "It's not that I wasn't scared" to be more open about her queerness, Stewart tells Variety. "It was just that there was no other way to live." More from her Variety interview here. (More Kristen Stewart stories.)

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