Category: event: AFI Fest

The Hollywood Reporter : Were it not for her Twilight fame Kristen Stewart would still be celebrated as an indie film darling following hits like Still Alice. At the AFI Fest Indie Contenders Panel, Stewart said that both indies and tentpoles have their virtues. “You’re always going to want a huge launching pad for what you poured your life’s energy and soul and heart into, but there is also something that feels cool about the outsider factor of, not everybody loves what we’re doing but the few that do are brothers, do you know what I mean? It feels great to go to Sundance. It’s fun. That’s why I make movies.”

Held Nov. 9 at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, the panel hosted by The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, also featured Marion Cottilard (Two Days, One Night), Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler), Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer), Michelle Monaghan (Fort Bliss), Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year), and Bill Hader (The Skeleton Twins).

Stewart, described by Feinberg as one of the “indie queens,” rejected George Clooney’s idea of the “one for them, one for me” approach — alternating indies and studio films. “I’m genuinely very much blown with the wind, I follow the gut. It’s not a tactical approach. I can greenlight a movie now that I’ve done five Twilight movies, but I just think it’s doing things for the right reason. There’s no way to quantify it. Even if something doesn’t completely equal success, if you don’t go, this script and director and cast and budget [spell success], I’m fully willing to hop on something if I’m interested in one person who’s involved in it, or one line that my character says that I’ve always been dying to say — it’s like, I will make a bad movie. Because it’s like, I’m like, whatever — I didn’t make it myself!”

Feinberg asked each panelist what advice they would give their younger selves starting out in the business. “Just relax, dude, chill out,” said Stewart. “I would love to go back then and tell my little self, ‘Don’t be that scared,'” said Cottilard. “Whatever happens, even the worst things, will make you who you are.” Said Hader, “When I was 20 I was a PA for a long time, I drove the evil sensei in Karate Kid. I made a little movie and my friends were like, ‘That sucks.'” Hader wants to tell his young self, “Just relax, it’s great to fail.”

Hader’s story prompted Gyllenhaal to offer his young self this advice: “Be careful what you say, because Bill Hader might be driving you.”