Cosmopolis: The Making Of

The Official Cosmopolis Facebook page has uploaded a behind the Scenes video of Cosmopolis! 

We have now put it up on YouTube. Check it out below!

Full Breaking Dawn Part 2 Trailer

Or watch at IMDb

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New teaser of the Breaking Dawn Part 2 teaser trailer!

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Added YouTube for those who can't see Yahoo!

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New Breaking Dawn Part 2 Teaser Trailer to debut on Wednesday! :)

Summit  Entertainment will be celebrating Edward Cullen’s 111th Birthday this Wednesday (June 20th) by debuting a brand new Breaking Dawn Part 2 teaser trailer!! :D

SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — To help fans worldwide celebrate Edward Cullen’s 111th birthday on June 20, 2012, Summit Entertainment, a LIONSGATE® (NYSE:LGF) company, will debut an exciting new teaser trailer for the highly anticipated THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2. A 10-second sneak peek of the teaser trailer will be available for download via EPK.tv at 5:30 AM PDT/8:30 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 19, 2012. Following the release of the first-look, the full teaser trailer will be made available for download on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 at 5:30 AM PDT/8:30 AM EDT via EPK.tv.

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FYI - 5:30AM PDT is 1:30PM GMT(Ireland).

Please note: This is still being billed as a teaser trailer, so while the teaser for Breaking Dawn Part 1 was almost 2 minutes long, the last (and currently only) teaser we got for Part 2 only lasted 49 seconds!!
So here's hoping that it's longer this time... What would you like to see in it? 


Do you think the footage will include anything like what we saw in the EW Magazine preview? 
Let us know in the comments below, and CLICK HERE to watch the last teaser trailer we got! :)

Cosmopolis Review

 

Potentially Spoilerish... be warned. 

When the news first broke around the interwebs that Robert Pattinson was going to do a movie called "Cosmopolis", which like many of his film choices is based on a book, droves of people were suddenly reading Don De Lillo's work. Consequently, droves of people were tweeting things like "I have no clue what this book is about" or "this book is so weird" or "how the hell are they going to get this on film?" - especially after it's popularity shot up after winning the MTV Brawl back in January!

HOW did he make this look sexy?! 

In the world of Robert Pattinson fans I have found very few people who actually loved the book. Personally, I LOVED the book. *waves hi to Rose*, my kindred book spirit. And when it was announced that THE David Cronenberg was going to be directing... well, be still my movie loving heart. So commenced a year of waiting, a year of seeing set pictures, seeing Rob with the dodgiest (yet, sexy) haircut known to mankind, a year of speculation...a year waiting for a movie set almost entirely in a limo!! 

Jess and I were lucky to get to see a press screening of Cosmopolis two weeks ago in Dublin. Turns out, given the films limited release in Ireland (only avail in Dublin) we were blessed. Boy, were we blessed. 

This film is nothing like anything Rob has ever done before. I'm almost sure it's nothing like anyone has done before. If I'd tried to write this review as soon as I left the theatre all it would say is .. "Wow, that was... wow." It left me speechless (in a good way.)

It's pure Cronenbergian greatness. Eric Packer is a multi-billionaire, wall street trader, who is so rich he has lost all sense of what money is, what it means, what it can give him any more. He is disconnected from the real world to such an extent that he is almost robotically ruled by the numbers flashing before his eyes as millions of dollars/world currencies are traded in front of his eyes in the most pimped out limo ever. 

He has one mission on this one day in New York and that is to get a haircut, across town, in his old neighbourhood barbers. Nowhere else will do. You get a sense from this theme that Eric has realised he needs to go back to his roots to sort out the current problem(s) he is having. To anyone else it would be an existential crisis but to Eric, it's a glitch in the market that is affecting his whole mindset.

He is joined by several people in the limo as it slowly makes it way through a presidential visit, a rappers funeral procession, and a protest rally. Each actor who joins the seemingly unshakable Packer in the limo proves why they were handpicked by Cronenberg for the parts. Everyone from Jay Baruchel (Shiner) to Juliette Binoche (Didi Fancher) to Samantha Morton (Vija Kinsky), shows true acting skill in such a confined set. 

Kevin Durand plays Torval- Packer's head of security, and plays it well. He seems quietly exasperated at his boss's seemingly suicidal mission to get across New York in such riotous circumstances. Trust me when I say you will remember the name "Nancy Babich" when this movie is over... 

"In the next block there are two haircutting salons. One, two. No need to go crosstown. The situation isn’t stable."

"You’re unsettled because you feel you have no role, you have no place. But you have to ask yourself whose fault this is..."

Paul Giamatti, briefly glimpsed earlier in the movie comes into full focus in the last scenes. He is an astounding actor and he brings the movie to a close with the effect of a whirlwind taking place inside a disturbed mind. 

And then there was Rob...! As a Robert Pattinson fan I am often subjected to trite media sarcasm, or considered a teenager with a crush (hey I'm 34!!) or worse, a Mom with a crush (I ain't one of them either), I am just a fan. And this is his best work to date! I can say that because I've seen everything he's done... My husband says a true fan knows when an actor's work is not up to standard - I reply with "well Little Ashes will be something I'll probably only ever watch once... and the Haunted Airman, maybe twice."  

Cosmopolis is a far cry from "Edward" in the Twilight Saga or "Diggory" in Harry Potter. This is a monologue driven, progressionist, sex fueled, current, masterpiece. Robert is in every scene and in every scene he nails it. He also nails a couple of women along the way which will leave you squirming in your seats (seriously - a room full of male journos, I was stifling myself and I saw one or two of them do the same). 

Everyone takes something different from this movie from what I've read of reviews so far - What I took from it? Robert plays a character who while seemingly, inhumanly disconnected to the point of robotic, systematically breaks down self made barriers to humanity and rediscovers he is actually human in the space of a day - the length of time it takes for him to get to his destination. 

Your destination ... Dublin. Get in the Limo, hold on for dear life, and make sure you see this movie!

Film Four's Catherine Bray interviews Robert Pattinson about Cosmopolis!

Cosmopolis is on limited release in Irish Cinemas from today, and Catherine Bray's interview with Rob about the film has made it's way online! (The YouTube version is below)

We know from Catherine's review that she loved the film, but check out Robs reaction from 1:22 when he realises that she 'gets it' (the film).
SO CUTE!!
Could we love him any more? :)

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Trailer for Anna Kendrick's next film "Pitch Perfect"

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RTÉ Reviews Cosmopolis! "Pattinson is entirely convincing as the doomed financier."

Paddy Kehoe from RTÉ reviewed Cosmopolis - which is out in Irish Cinemas tomorrow - and gave it 3/5 Stars;

Beware of novels set inside stretch limousines - things may get a little claustrophobic. Much of Saul Bellow's 1989 novella A Theft, for instance, was set inside a stretch limo, moving around the streets of New York. The work is one of the least memorable of Bellow's fictional creations. Certainly, if you were thinking box office, it would be unwise to make a movie based on it - if you were thinking about doing just that.

David Cronenberg set himself the challenge of adapting Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis, much of which is similarly set inside a stretch limo in New York. The 210-page novel was published to much acclaim in 2003 and DeLillo is a critics' favourite whose works are almost universally welcomed and revered.

But Cosmopolis didn't have much in the way of drama. An earlier DeLillo work, The Names, could, in the right hands, make a great film. Libra, his fictional recreation of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, likewise. But Cosmopolis as a film? Hmm, a strange, perhaps venally indulgent choice by Cronenberg, who also wrote the screenplay.

Robert Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a 28-year-old asset manager billionaire whose limo is his office (or should that be the other way around?). For the purposes of the movie, anyway - given that we never see where he lives - the vehicle is also his swish mobile home. This sleek, intimate-yet-sterile conveyance has a drinks cabinet and all sorts of monitors that keep the financial whizz kid informed on how things are going in the business world. That is all that has mattered up until today, when the whole thing ends in tears.

Because today is the day Eric will hit career and personal meltdown, having bet his shirt on the Chinese yuan. As the day moves on from breakfast with his soon-to-be-estranged wife (played brilliantly by Sarah Gadon), he is waited on by cronies and assistants. These individuals hop on and off, as though the car were a tram in this city that is a stylised, only mildly recognisable version of New York.

Packer is a bit like a young Howard Hughes, and he has a doctor check him out thoroughly, every day. Then there's Packer's sexual need. We see a woman whose long black hair clings sweatily across her face in a particularly torrid encounter with the young man. Then the couple peel themselves apart and the woman's hair falls back to reveal a gorgeously carnal Juliette Binoche. I thought this scene was particularly arresting. The Guardian's critic took a different view, dismissing it as over-acting - "Juliette Binoche laying an egg", as he rather pithily expressed it. Ah now, a little unfair.

Then there's Eric's spooky bodyguard, relaying constant warnings about assassination attempts, although Packer is not particularly concerned. His life has turned so insipid that losing it is of little consequence.

At one point, the limo drives right into the middle of an anarchists' demonstration and the vehicle gets spray-painted and rocked from side to side. Packer continues to sit unconcerned as he awaits his fate, chatting to another hanger-on. The only moment of feeling seeps through in a visit to his old childhood barber to get the hair cut he has been talking about since early morning. Packer's desensitised, dead-eye stare lingers long after the end credits, and Pattinson is entirely convincing as the doomed financier.

The car, he tells one of his limo visitors, is cork-lined, but cannot shut out all the noise, which he aims to rectify. This must be a very rarefied noise, given that the limo's interior is impervious to all external sound, as it moves majestically in a deathly hush through the eerie city.

All the more silence then to hear the intimate dialogue and the characters' constant ticker-tape of ideas and wild fantasy - a feature that characterises much of DeLillo's fiction. Call Cosmopolis pretentious twaddle if you wish - and some indeed have - but, whatever else it is, the movie seems scrupulously faithful to the novel's aspirations. And if DeLillo is not mass-market with his fussy, hyper-intelligent, mildly nerdy novels, then you can hardly blame Cronenberg for that.

Scans: New Breaking Dawn Part 2 Images in EW Magazine!!

This morning we saw the first official image of the newest Cullen clan, and now we have been informed that EW Magazine will have a Breaking Dawn Part 2 special, which seems to have two different covers and features LOADS of new images from the film!

Check out the photos and the article below!

NOTE: Easons Ireland sometimes have EW, but if you wish to order this magazine just in case (or if you live internationally), you can click here and order the next issue from newsstand!

Cover and inside images (from the EW Site): 

 

 

  

  

  

Article Scan (via Epnebelle ):

 

 

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New Edward, Bella and Renesmee 'Breaking Dawn Part 2' Promo Picture

EEEEEEEK! 

For the very first time, we officially get to see the newest Cullen family together! 

EW's facebook has released an image of Bella and Edward protecting Renesmee - with a promise that we'll be getting more tomorrow!

I think they look AMAZING! What about you?
Loving the outfits! Bella looks badass! :)

(click for bigger!)

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SWATH opens at #2 in the Irish Box Office!

A section in today's Irish Independent's 'Day & Night' Magazine, shows that Snow White and the Huntsman has opened up at #2 in the Irish charts, making €437,585.
This is good news... since we've just been told that there WILL be a SWATH sequel being made! :D

If you're not sure whether to go see this film, check out our review - maybe it will help you decide!

As a side note, this supplement also contained an interview with Robert Pattinson. CLICK HERE to see the scans!

Scans: Robert Pattinson in the Irish Independent's "Day & Night" Supplement Magazine! (Friday, June 8th, 2012)

The Irish Independent have an interview with Robert Pattinson in their supplemental "Day & Night" magazine!

Below are the scans.

  

 

 

*Please source us if you re-blog! Thank you!

Robert Pattinson On Strombo: Full Interview

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Video: First clip of Rob on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight !

George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight is Canada’s only nationally televised late night talk show and airs weeknights at 11:05 PM on CBC. 
In tomorrow's show, Rob talks about whether he chose to do Cosmopolis in order to avoid Twilight typecasting, how Ryan Gosling’s career helped him understand his own situation, what it feels like to be somewhat isolated as a celebrity, arguing with Adele about ambition, his plans post-Twilight, his feelings about Heath Ledger’s work in ‘The Dark Knight’, and where he’d like to see Hollywood go.

It’s going to be a Cosmopolis special, which also features interviews with director David Cronenberg and fellow actors Paul Giamatti and Sarah Gadon. Sounds like it's going to be amazing!  Hopefully some one puts the entire thing up on YouTube so we all get to watch it :)

Here is a transcript of the clip:

George Stroumboulopoulos: You know, post-Twilight franchise , you were trying to go down different roads? Was this legitimately part of your planning?

Robert Pattinson: This was not part of the plan at all. I just thought I was totally oversaturated everywhere, I wanted to do little tiny parts or maybe no parts at all. I got this three weeks before I was finishing the last Twilight movie, and I was really, really determined to find ensemble pieces or anything small just so I didn’t have to be in everybody’s face and annoying everyone. And then this thing came up.

[WIPE]

GS: Is this a new experience for you though, to watch your film back and go, oh wait a minute, how do I promote this movie?

RP: Ah, completely. It reminded me, I watched this interview with Ryan Gosling once, and he said when he did The Believer a few years ago, and people were saying — cause he’d done Young Hercules for three or four seasons — and then he did The Believer and everybody was asking about his craft. And it’s the most, most confusing thing. I was in Cannes doing these interviews, and I was really fighting to not look pretentious for years, and someone gives you one inch of the possibility of being pretentious, and you’re like grabbing it so hard, going around being the biggest douchebag. And now I’ve kind of reined it in again.

GS: The one thing I imagine that you’re dealing with is aside from your close circle of friends — actual humanity, actual human conversations, the connections we all crave as a person, it’s harder and harder for you to find, isn’t it?

RP: Yeah, but I just remember, I think I was pretty similar before. Like I would be one of those people who was desperate to go to a party and then they go to the party and just stand in the corner with the people they came with and refuse to acknowledge that anyone else is there. So I don’t really miss anything. And you kind of, you have all these fantasies if I wasn’t famous I’d meet all these random people in the street all the time. But you don’t meet random people in the street. Most of the time you’re trying to avoid everybody even if you’re not famous.

RP: Actually I had this argument with Adele, which is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever said. I was saying, “you know, you can really just like reach for it,” and she was like, “you do realize I am like the biggest-selling female artist ever?” And I just for some reason just decided to get into an argument with her.

GS: How does that happen, at two o’clock in the morning somewhere?

RP: Yeah, and then waking up and kind of really, really regretting every word I said.

GS: Do you think much about the fact that when this franchise goes away, that you need that second act to your career? Do you think about that?

RP: The only thing I ever thought about was thinking, I don’t want anyone to think that I somehow got trapped by something, you know. And I don’t know if anyone really does, the general public, about Twilight – but the amount of times you get asked, “oh, are you worried about being typecast?” I’m just worried about people saying, like, “What happened to that guy?” And also, you think, you want to do something at least a little bit worthwhile with what kind of power you’ve been given, through luck. And not just keep trying to extend the same thing for as long as possible. I’m not very scared of it going away at all. If I could somehow maintain a career in which I keep making movies like Cosmopolis, than I think it would be amazing, because not very many of them are made. You know, I always thought after The Dark Knight, for instance, it makes tons and tons of money, and Heath is doing something just outside — and people understand what he’s doing, it’s not like he’s not doing something totally crazy, but it’s just slightly outside the box of what people are used to seeing, and I really thought that was going to change everything as to how the big budget movies are made. But it didn’t, at all. If every single actor wasn’t afraid of trying to do something slightly abstract and not concerned about their movie making tons and tons of money, then eventually the industry would change.

GS: But then you and other guys in your position, can you make these kinds of films, then? And not just as actors?

RP: I think you can once. I don’t know how many other times. I’m desperately trying to get a superhero movie now.

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Video: Kevin Durand talks Cosmopolis and Rob - plus - New BTS Footage and interviews with Pattinson and Cronenberg!

Kevin Durand plays Eric Packer's bodyguard 'Torval' in Cosmopolis. He has some really nice things to say about Robert Pattinson! :)

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Some Set-Interviews with David and Rob!

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New Moon: The Graphic Novel Volume 1 -Cover Art revealed plus Release Date and Pre-Order Info!

Amazon.com has posted the cover of the newest Graphic Novel of the saga; 
Volume One of New Moon.

This title will be available from October 30, 2012 in the US, and there is no official international release date as of yet.
However, according to The Book Depository, it's the same date overall.   

Ireland/UK: Pre Order from The Book Depository for €9.01.

US: Pre-order from Amazon.com for $9.98.

It's also important to note that The book Depository offer free worldwide delivery! ;)
So be sure to find out which option is cheaper for you!

We've already seen the beautiful cover work on both of the Twilight Graphic Novels (both Volume 1 and Volume 2) so what do you think of the Mew Moon cover?

Do you think Part 2 will have Edward?

Via twilight-vef-france

'Snow White and the Huntsman' - Our Review

Everyone knows the story; The evil stepmother, the seven dwarves, a poison apple and a handsome prince. However in this fairytale retelling, Kristen Stewart steps into the role as a slightly more kick-ass Snow White.

Strongly influenced by feminist thinking, this tale of a brave, beautiful and far from helpless Snow White is not your typical "Damsel in Distress" story. This Snow White doesn’t depend on men for help in being saved from the evil Queen, rather she is more than capable of fending for herself – with only a little help from The Huntsman. 

Though the film itself is knowingly predicable, first-time director Rupert Sanders brings a unique spin on the beloved fairytale by creating what feels like a cross between the 2000 fairytale/fantasy TV series The 10th Kingdom and an epic battle movie; 

Snow White's happy childhood is cut short when her new stepmother (Charlize Theron) murders her father and imprisons her for almost a decade. The evil Queen, along with her creepily close brother, then take over the Kingdom - quite literally feeding from the beauty of young women in order to remain fairest in the land.

Once the Queen’s faithful mirror delivers the news that Snow White, if kept alive, will soon become fairer then her, she quickly sends her brother to fetch the princess so they can dispose of her accordingly. Unfortunately for them, Snow White escapes and runs into The Dark Forrest, leading the Queen to trick a local huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) into finding her and only bringing back her heart.

 

Tricking the Huntsman backfires, though, and he swiftly decides to help Snow White in her plan to take down the Queen and rightfully reclaim her Kingdom. They are joined by Prince William soon after - who not only is in love with Snow White but saves her life when the Huntsman is not around - as well as eight dwarves. With the group larger and stronger then ever before, they finally go in to battle."

Charlize Theron is simply amazing as Ravenna, delivering a flawless performance as the furious and psychologically unstable Queen. You are able to feel both fear and sorrow for her character thanks to the little bit of subtle depth she portrays in her. All in all, she is the perfect villain.

Kristen takes to her role wonderfully with her simple yet stunning beauty creating a perfect Snow White. Her shy personality in reality is channelled into her performance and she portrays her character’s kindness and strength flawlessly, reminding us that her ability to adapt to different roles never fails to impress.

Sam Clafin plays Snow White's childhood-best-friend, Prince William, who obviously still has feelings for her after all the years she spent imprisoned - even though he had thought her dead the entire time.
Sam does a wonderful job portraying both the fear and elation his character feels as he reunites with Snow White for the final battle.  

  

 Chris Hemsworth is the perfect picture of a tough, strong huntsman, balancing both masculinity and compassion equally throughout the film. He shows his strength as an actor in some of the more quieter moments - such as speaking about his deceased wife or teaching Snow White how to fight so she can survive - but he is also well able to become somewhat of a comic relief in his scenes with the dwarves.

Some people will be shocked to see the 'little' dwarves portrayed by 'big' actors such as Nick Frost and Brian Gleeson. While the actor's bodies were all reduced in size with thanks to the film's seamless CGI, their performances were nothing 'short' (see what I did there?! ;)) of amazing.

For this film it really seems that no expense was spared in the graphics department and it definitely pays off. The special effects throughout the film were phenomenal - from the way characters could explode into flocks of crows or shards of coal, the hallucinogenic "Dark Forrest" scenes where mounds of grass and muck could suddenly turn into trolls, and the enchanted wood full of whimsical creatures such as faeries, sprites, and even a deer that explodes into a flock of butterflies - you feel drawn in to the story and may, at times, feel like you are actually there experiencing all that the characters are.

This imagery is surely helped along by the impressive score, done by James Newton Howard, which only serves to enhance these visuals and help in creating such a strong atmosphere.

Overall, we felt that it deserved 4/5 stars, and while we must admit that we could have initially taken or left the film due to its well-known story-line, Rupert Sanders has impressed us with a somewhat unique approach to the beloved fairytale.

This is certainly Kristen Stewart's best performance to date, one in which we can definitely get lost in and forget about comparing her to any other characters she has played before - the mark of a truly good actress. 

KStew fans, like us, definitely won’t be disappointed with this well made fantasy film which is an undoubtedly impressive attempt at Sander’s first blockbuster.

We cannot WAIT to see it in the cinemas again, and then buy it on DVD :)

Let us know your thought on the film (and our review!) in the comments below!

Written by myself (Twilsessed) and my friend, Caitríona, who got to attend the premiere on May 23rd, with thanks to Universal Pictures Ireland.

The Irish Times: Interview with Kristen Stewart + SWATH review!

JUST DON’T SAY anything bad about Kristen Stewart. Seriously. The first time I met Ms Stewart she was 17 years old. She had just finished shooting Twilight and was intimidated, even before the film’s release, by the burgeoning popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga.

“I’m, like, Little Miss Indie film,” she told me. “I really wanted to work with Catherine Hardwicke, the director. And I presumed Twilight was just another off-centre, cool little film for a very devoted, quite exclusive fan base.”

The Twi-hard fanbase soon set her straight, but she was taking it well: “Girls, especially at a certain age, can be bullies. But I understand why. I understand their covetousness. Edward is such an icon. All I can say is ‘sorry’ to anyone who thinks I’m not Bella Swan. Really. I’m sorry for stealing Edward. I completely relate to that. But I love the book just as much as they do and share their protective urges toward it.”

Back then, she was not yet a star, but she was already an accomplished actor. She had impressed critics with what ought to have been a mere wisp of a part in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild and had stolen scenes from right under Jodie Foster’s nose in David Fincher’s The Panic Room.

Wearing jeans and a hoodie, she curled up into a little ball beside me, tucking her Converse sneakers under herself. She was whip smart, singular and terrifically, endearingly awkward. I developed a weird maternal, or possibly materteral instinct for the teenager right then and there.

It is a relief to sit down with her in London all these years later and to discover that she hasn’t changed a bit. She retains all the wobbliness of a newborn foal. She trips over her own shoes and words.

“Um, um . . . blah. Okay. Let’s just start again,” she stammers, mid-introductory handshake. “Cheers. Hello. All that.”

It’s a vindication of sorts: for the longest time I’ve enjoyed physically poking people who talk trash about the 22-year-old and her Twilight franchise, especially when these same arbiters go on to praise the far more conservative Harry Potter sequence.

“Oh wait . . .” She panics momentarily. “I mean, I don’t mean wait, I mean sorry. I don’t want to stop talking but you know there’s no film in that camera over there?”

That’s okay: this isn’t for TV.

“Oh. Okay. Cool. I just thought I had wasted your time. Okay. We can talk now. Sorry.”

You’d think K-Stew would be a little bit grander at this point in her career. You’d think she’d be accustomed to the glare of the spotlight. As one half of bicephalic celebrity juggernaut “Robsten”, she and her romantic partner, Robert Pattinson, are among the most photographed and stalked entities on earth. Instead she sits, feet all fidgety, with her shoulders rigid against her ears. It’s only when we start talking in wolf-dog noises – she lives with two of the beasts; I have one – that she loses her angular shape and nervous twitches.

Do hers try to talk too, I wonder. Like they’re trying to make human sounds?

“Yes. Oh yes. All the time!” she cries, over random, unco-ordinated hand gestures. “They definitely talk. ‘Arr Arr Arr!’ They think they can imitate me perfectly.”

An assistant briefly puts her head around the door as Kristen makes like a lupine. She doesn’t look remotely surprised.

“I have no tact,” laughs Stewart. “That’s the thing. None.”

She really isn’t terribly Hollywood. You can see why she loved shooting in Montreal recently, a place where nobody cared if she talked in wolf-dog and nobody cared what was in her bins.

“I’m usually pretty self-conscious about running around town with my face hanging out,” she says. “I got to live more in four weeks up there than I would in a lifetime worth of my normal life.”

It’s a big year for Kristen Stewart in her “normal life”. Walter Salles’s adaptation of On The Road sees Hollywood’s shyest starlet cavorting in a three-way on-screen relationship with Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund. In November, the Twilight franchise takes a final bow with Breaking Dawn Part II.

This week, Snow White and the Huntsman will put Stewart’s box-office clout to the test. It’s an epic fantasy film that sees Kristen’s Snow White face down Charlize Theron’s wicked stepmother on the battlefield. Even she’s a little surprised to find herself in a second big-budget fantasy franchise.

“I know what people must be thinking,” she says, breaking into So-Cal business speak: “‘Ooh. Is she trying to prove herself outside the Twilight franchise? Can she hold up another one?’ That’s so not why I did this. That’s so not why I choose things.”

So why did Little Miss Indie plump for this year’s Narnia Chronicles? A rollicking reimagining of the Grimm Brothers’ classic that falls somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Princess Mononoke, Rupert Sanders’s impressive debut feature sees Stewart channelling the qualities of a feral child and never, ever whistling while she works.

“It felt like new material to me,” she tells me. “I had definitely seen the Disney cartoon. But even that’s a tenuous connection. I think I watched it once or twice. It wasn’t one of my favourites. So this wasn’t about rediscovering something I connected with before or as a little girl. It moved me right now. It was completely novel. She’s the most frazzled, raw character I’ve ever played. Her nerves are so very close to the surface of her skin.”

A natural actor in the way that certain footballers are natural strikers, Stewart offers a kitchen-sink-friendly nous that is nicely complemented by Sanders’s very tactile, very maggoty universe. That, she says, was ultimately why she was happy to sign up for a fairytale.

“I mean, it’s a princess story,” she laughs. “It’s supposed to be la-la-la. But none of us ever felt silly. We never had to fake a thing. We were consistently challenged by our environment. Rupert threw very dangerous elements at us all the time. It was muddy. It was cold. It was England. You can read through something. You can get into character. But if you want to get that little bit deeper nothing hurts like actual pain. I love that. I love watching people in discomfort on-screen. And you can always tell.”

Stewart never varies her methodology, whether she’s playing Bella in Twilight or Marylou in On the Road. She says the Kerouac book changed her life as a younger teen. But that doesn’t mean she regarded the Salles adaptation as being any weightier than her other roles.

“I don’t like it when people dismiss Twilight as puppy love or Snow White as a fairytale,” she says. “Why should something be a less valuable depiction of the human condition because it’s about a 17-year-old girl? Why should something be less credible as a story because it’s about a princess? I don’t think of those parts as lesser parts.”

It’s hard to know what Stewart’s Twi-hard fanbase will make of On the Road. Walter Salles’s film, though far from being an unqualified success, pokes away at the misogyny of the original Kerouac text. The book’s Beat heroes, in particular Dean Moriarty (a thinly fictionalised Neal Cassidy) are exposed (and almost denounced) as lousy boyfriends, husbands and fathers.

Consequently, at last week’s Cannes premiere, audiences were taken aback to realise that Stewart – playing Dean’s passed-around, 16-year-old bride – is naked and cavorting for a good deal of the 137-minute run-time.

“I never thought of it that way,” she says. “I felt safe with Walter. I felt safe with the guys. It wasn’t about me being naked. I loved the challenge of it. I look at it now and it’s insane. But I don’t feel connected to what’s on the screen. I mean, I do but . . . it’s me, but it’s not. And I love Marylou. She jumps right off the page and smashes you in the face. With her tongue. She never sold herself. That was the one thing about her that made her different from everyone else in that movement. She wasn’t rebelling against anything. She was just being.”

Two weeks after I meet Kristen Stewart in London she walks past the press room in Cannes. Her On the Road co-star, Kirsten Dunst, steps in to help when Kristen, in heels she just can’t manage, almost trips over her own feet.

It really is a relief to discover that she hasn’t changed a bit.

Irish Times

 The Irish Times also reviewed Snow White and gave it 3/5 stars! See it below:

YES, YES, YES. The latest adaptation of Snow White – like this year’s feeble Mirror Mirror – is, of course, an outrageous rip-off of Tim Burton’s puzzlingly successful Alice in Wonderland.

As in that film, the heroes get to don armour and wallop antagonists on their hairy heads. Come to think of it, Burton’s film owed an awful lot to Lord of the Rings. The new film is positively dripping in other people’s DNA.

Never mind. Snow White and the Huntsman turns out to be a surprisingly nifty piece of work. Whereas Alice in Wonderland toyed too much with whimsy and cuteness, Rupert Sanders’s grimy epic allows in a surprising amount of blood and gratifying degrees of entry-level horror. It’s spooky, funny and just a little bit freaky.

Charlize Theron is impressively spiteful as the wicked queen who takes expected umbrage at the mirror’s outrageous suggestion that her stepdaughter might be the “fairest of them all”. The under-rated Kristen Stewart brings introverted fury to the role of Snow White. Though the film stays away from clever-clever pop-cultural references, one still gets the sense of a lady who lunches becoming confused by a looser, more contemporary class of beauty.

Chris Helmsworth, our current Thor, confirms his status as the era’s most gifted wielder of the manly grunt. Playing the titular huntsman, he is offered every opportunity to pluck the damsel – no slouch at defending herself, mind – from the clutches of demonic henchmen.

At times, the smoky art design becomes just a little monotonous. But the interlude in a fairy glade offers some colourful relief, and the contributions from the celebrity dwarfs – Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Nick Frost and three others – are consistently amusing.

Mind you, one can’t help but worry about the notion of digitally altering fully sized actors to play little people. Isn’t this a little like blacking up performers to become ersatz people of colour? Some class of boycott is sure to follow

Irish Times