Kristen Stewart Urges More Films to Explore Girls as Sexual Beings, Says New Directorial Effort Is ‘Vulgar’ and ‘Unabashedly Open’
Zack Sharf
Kristen Stewart has had enough of coming-of-age movies exclusively focusing on male teenagers exploring their sexuality. In a new interview with Paris’ Mastermind Magazine (via PEOPLE), the 28-year-old actress advocates for more movies about young girls discovering their bodies and sexuality.
“Right now, I’m so aware of the fact that we’ve watched, cinematically, men and their way into their bodies and do physical things that feel fundamental to this male perspective,” Stewart said. “In every coming of age story we see about a young girl, even if it’s the truest, most sincere thing, what’s lacking is the physical honesty of actual female experience and the way we discover our bodies. It’s like we’re scared of using certain words.”
Stewart is going to walk the walk in her feature directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water.” The movie, which Stewart is also writing, is an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch 2011 memoir of the same name. According to Amazon, “Water” traces the effect of “extreme grief on a young woman’s developing sexuality that some define as untraditional because of her attraction to both men and women.”
“My favorite line in this movie I’m currently writing is, ‘I thought about Sienna Torres and her shoving her hand into my wide-open cunt about as wide as a mouth saying motherfucker,'” Stewart told mastermind, well aware that’s not the kind of language many filmgoers are used to hearing in coming-of-age-movies.
“That’s not something people would be comfortable hearing, up until right now, but I think it’s the perfect time,” Stewart said. “There’s nothing dirty about it, but I’m definitely going to be vulgar, and I’m definitely going to be completely unabashedly open about the fact that we’re entirely sexual beings.”
Stewart also explained how excited she is by the film’s bisexual storyline, saying it fits into her love of all things ambiguity.
“Ambiguity is my favorite thing ever. In terms of sexuality? For sure,” Stewart said. “And also in making films, if you perfectly answer every question, you don’t allow for people to have their own experience and really indulge a thought. I feel the same way about how we fuck each other. You don’t want to know everything all the time.”
Before Stewart begins production on “Water” she’ll appear in “Lizzie” (in theaters September 14) and “Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy,” world premiering at TIFF this month.
