German magazine 032c has devoted its cover and 38 pages of its summer issue to former Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière, calling the feature a “monument” to Ghesquière’s final spring 2013 season. It’s a hefty tribute indeed: There’s a thirteen-page Q&A between the designer and Pierre Alexandre de Looz, a fashion editorial starring Ghesquière muse Charlotte Gainsbourg and styled by Marie Amélie Sauvé, and a meaty story by De Looz about Ghesquière’s fifteen-year tenure at the house, bolstered with reverent quotes from major industry figures like Grace Coddington, Eric Wilson, and Hamish Bowles. It’s a long read, to say the least, but full of interesting tidbits about Ghesquière’s ideas and the history of Balenciaga.

But let’s cut to the juicy part: Kristen Stewart, a friend and “ambassador” of Ghesquière’s, contributed several F-bomb-laced quotes to the piece. She tells De Looz:

He is a reminder of how fucking annoying everyone else is. It’s not easy to walk a line that not every single person in the world is going to get in a second. Nicolas is the sort of person who loves swimming in rough water …

I’ve felt the happiest I’ve ever felt wearing these clothes. I’ve also felt androgynous and rigid. Sort of like you’re wearing a fucking building. • Read full story »

HAVING CONQUERED THE BOX OFFICE AND THE TABLOIDS, KRISTEN STEWART RETURNS TO THE SMALL SCREEN IN WALTER SALLES’S BEWITCHIG ADAPTATION OF ON THE ROAD. AS IT TURNS OUT, THE EPIC TALE OF LOVE, WANDERLUST, AND SOUL-SEARCHING DOVETAILS PERFECTLY WITH THE ACTRESS’S POST-TWILIGHT STATE OF MIND

Kristen Stewart is nothing short of gracious. Upon walking into this interview a few minutes behind schedule, she proffers a hug and an offer to “stay until you get everything you need.” There are no publicists, handlers, ringleaders, or beefcake bodyguards hanging around, and she is dressed in 7 for All Mankind jeans and Converse kicks. For the world’s highest-earning actress—last year she dethroned Sarah Jessica Parker and Angelina Jolie at the top of the Forbes list, to the tune of $34.5 million—the lack of pretense is really quite remarkable…not that this is her favorite part of the job. “I really love people,” she says as she hops into a chair and folds her tiny frame like origami. “You can’t not as an actor. It’s just strange meeting someone and going, Okay, you start at square one and I will try and make up for what you already think you know about me.”

The 10,000-pound gorilla in the room is of course that people—present company included—think they know a lot: how much she earns, whom she dates, and even more intimate details. Since her Twilight reign began, digging into Stewart’s personal life has become a bit of a blood sport. (To wit, a gossip rag recently splashed a photo of her with presumed boyfriend Robert Pattinson and announced that she’s pregnant. She’s not.) The Star Wars-esque emotional force field that she instinctually activates for self-preservation is palpable. In this instance, her armor is enhanced by pulled-back hair, glasses, and an oversize bomber jacket that serves as a kind of cocoon. There’s a slightly feral air to her presence—she’s jumpy and prone to pacing—but all the anxiety is kind of endearing. She’s young and excitable, and having weathered the highs and lows of 2012, she claims to feel stronger than ever before.

“I have realized that you can close yourself off to life if you put walls up, but it’s a difficult thing,” she says. “You can’t see over, people can’t see in, and you also can’t see out. So I’ve gotten quite comfortable with just being unafraid. I keep saying the same thing: it’s not about being fearless but really just embracing the fears and using them.” • Read full story »

Kristen Stewart has a solid, vigorous handshake.

When she arrives at the darkened restaurant at the Tribeca Grand hotel, precisely seven minutes late, she’s guardedly apologetic about her tardiness. A table of men gawks at Stewart as she keeps her head down, her hair loose around her face, clad in jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers, and quickly crosses the room to a more secluded table in the corner.

Stewart, barely out of her teens, has tasted the flip side of fame, and it isn’t much to her liking. She’s cautious and watchful and ill at ease, until she’s not. The thing is, give Stewart a little bit of time, a glass of pinot grigio, and some thoughtful conversation, and she warms up.

Being gaped at, she says, brings out her inner dork.

“I feel like I’m in the sixth grade, and everyone in the room is laughing at me. Some people can come into a room and say hello to everyone, and it’s fine. I’m not that person. I don’t think I’m very approachable,” says the actress, 22.

She’s no pushover. If there’s one thing you need to note about her, it’s this: When she suddenly was anointed the tabloid scarlet woman, after photos surfaced of her getting cozy with married director Rupert Sanders — while ostensibly dating her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson — Stewart didn’t hunker down and hide under the covers. She went to Toronto in September to promote her labor of love, On the Road, the adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic 1957 novel about the Beat Generation. She talked to press. She posed for photos. She attended the premiere of the film.

“I’ve been working on this thing for five years. When it makes sense, when there’s a platform for it, it makes so much sense for me to be there. I can stand tall. I can stand proud,” Stewart says. ”I’ve never been the type of person who can stand in the forefront of nothing. That occasionally makes public appearances awkward. It feels a lot different when you’re going to unleash something that feels worth it.”

A conversation with the actress isn’t linear. It ebbs and flows and touches on everything from her love of cooking to her appreciation of Kerouac to her recent fascination with the reality show Duck Dynasty, courtesy of her best friend Dakota Fanning. • Read full story »

You’ve been incredibly loyal to this film, even through a period when you’ve been getting tons of press for other stupid reasons.

It’s hard because we’ve been working on this since we were in Cannes [in May]. When you’re promoting something like this, that you believe in, you want to be honest and open and empathetic, but when you get asked the same question …

Like, 35 times.

Right, exactly. And you give the same answers, which doesn’t mean that it’s fake or rehearsed. It can be something that you’ve thought about and you, like, totally believe.

You know, I’ve encountered that, where I’ve interviewed someone and then I read some other interview with them in a different publication where they say exactly the same things, word for word. And yet I believed at the time that it was a totally sincere conversation. And maybe it was!

It probably was. I’m going to do the same thing right now! [Laughter.] And it’s not on purpose. It’s not like you sit and remember those things. If you ask someone the same question over and over, the answer’s probably going to be similar.

Also, you’re an actor. You can deliver something over and over again and believe it. That’s one of your skills.

Yeah! Yeah, I guess that’s true.

You know, among some of my movie-watching friends, we’ve established a convention where we always refer to you as “the girl from ‘Adventureland.’”

Aw! That’s really funny. That’s cool! I love that.

And, you know, it’s not entirely a joke. Because I do know quite a few people who loved you in that movie and have very likely never seen those other somewhat more popular films that you did. [Laughter.]

Yeah, I get that. • Read full story »

Because getting comfortable with the intensity of some of the physical scenes between the two of you, just so that you could do those scenes yourself, were there teams of managers and agents debating whether you should do it or not?

STEWART: No.

HEDLUND: No. The torture for them wasn’t having to accept the fact that your ass would be out for anybody to see, but with the internet, it will never go away. But, it wasn’t really that. It was the fact that for two or three years, I was saying no to everything that came across the table, and they were just like, “All right, you go off and do that film. I hope Mr. Salles is happy. Where have you been for the last three fucking years?” That was the only thing. Agents and managers despise passion projects sometimes.

Did you talk to you parents about the nudity in this film, before they saw it?

HEDLUND: My mom and sister watched it next to me.

STEWART: Yeah, that was really an interesting experience.

HEDLUND: There were a lot of laughs. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know if the laughs were out of nervousness or because the actual text was really that humorous. • Read full story »

It would be hard to end 2012 without a few final reflections from this year’s most talked about young actor, Kristen Stewart. Luckily we caught up with her at the IFC Films/Sundance Selects premiere (presented by Grey Goose Vodka) of On the Road, the film adaptation of the beloved Jack Kerouac novel. Though our primary intention may or may not have been to see that dress up close, we chatted up the starlet, discussing her favorite On the Road scenes, the joy of showering, and more. We walked away thinking that, after a year of very public ups and downs, starring in this art-house adaptation might just provide her with a perfect capper to 2012 and a pleasant segue into a more stable 2013.

Was On the Road influential for you as an adolescent?

“I read it for school. I’d always really done well in school and enjoyed it, but I was never floored by it, in that way. Up until that point, I did it because I wanted to be a good kid, and then it sort of kickstarted something in me. It probably coincided with the age that I was — it’s a moment when you look up and actually choose your surroundings, you actually choose the people that you’re going to call your friends. At that time, I thought, ‘I need to find people that are going to really push me.’”

How did you get the get the rough look of your character, Marylou?

“She was just really simple. One really remarkable thing about her is she’s so completely un-self-conscious. Vanity was the last thing on her mind.
She was a beautiful girl, and everyone who talked about her said that. She was infectious and disarmingly present. I wasn’t going for rough. I was going for real.”

Do you have any favorite looks that you’ve gotten to wear this year?

“I liked everything I wore this year…I think. I don’t want to offend any of the dresses.” • Read full story »