Kristen Stewart spoken to as 'somebody with a brain' after ditching acting for directing career

Kristen Stewart has opened up about a major shift in her career, revealing that stepping away from acting and moving into directing has fundamentally changed how she is treated in the film industry.

The 35-year-old star says that working behind the camera has finally led to conversations where she feels intellectually respected, something she suggests was often missing during her years as an actress.

Stewart recently made her directorial debut with The Chronology of Water and explained that the move was shaped by long-standing frustrations with how actresses are perceived and spoken to in Hollywood. Reflecting on her experiences, she said, "Actresses get treated like s*, I've got to tell you,"** describing an industry culture that routinely undervalues women’s voices.

She elaborated that the contrast became immediately clear once she began promoting her film as a director. "People think anyone could be an actress, but the first time I sat down to talk about my movie as a director, I thought, 'Wow, this is a different experience, they are talking to me like I'm somebody with a brain,'" Stewart said.

The shift, she noted, exposed a deeper imbalance in how authority and credibility are assigned on film sets.

Stewart also challenged the mythologizing of directors, pushing back on the idea that their skills are somehow mystical. "There's this idea that directors have otherworldly abilities, which is not true. It's an idea perpetuated by men," she said. According to Stewart, this perception feeds into an environment where actors, particularly women, are denied agency.

"Not to sound like I'm complaining all the time, but it's worse for female actors than male ones, they get treated like puppets, but they are not."

In another part of the interview, Stewart recalled a revealing conversation with a male actor she admires, which underscored these gendered differences. "And I said there are no female Method actors because Method acting is an acrobatic performance to make acting seem like a feat that it is not," she explained.

She continued, "I think acting is just playing pretend; you don't have to do 50 press-ups before a take." When she pointed out how male and female actors are viewed differently, the exchange took a sharp turn. "As soon as I made the distinction between male and female actors, he became defensive and said he had never met an actress that wasn't crazy."

Stewart reflected on how her reaction to such remarks has evolved with time. "Just a couple years ago a comment like that would have made me turn red in the face, my ears would have started steaming and I would have seemed exactly like what he wanted me to seem like, an angry woman," she said. Now, she added, "Instead, I just continued and got to the end of my thought. Getting older is great because you can achieve a calm."

Stewart’s career began early. She was only 12 when she starred opposite Jodie Foster in David Fincher’s Panic Room in 2002. At 18, she became an international star as Bella Swan in the Twilight franchise alongside Robert Pattinson. In 2022, she received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Princess Diana in Spencer, cementing her critical credibility.

Her directorial debut, The Chronology of Water, is adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir and premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film explores themes of childhood trauma, survival, and addiction, following Lidia, played by Imogen Poots, as she turns to competitive swimming after enduring an abusive upbringing.

Stewart believes her perspective as a woman was central to the film’s creation. "If I was a man I wouldn't have made this movie," she said. "We have to deny our physicality every single day and there is so much, like birth, that is so painful and also quite beautiful, but we don't share it because it is uncomfortable and icky." She added, "We've been pushed out of the canon in terms of expression. I wanted to speak to a world designed to silence women. We have to push people out of the way to get our experience seen and that pisses people off."

The film also stars Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge, Thora Birch, and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. It was met with a standing ovation at Cannes, with Variety praising it as "a stirring drama of abuse and salvation, told with poetic passion," and Indiewire critic David Ehrlich noting "there isn't a single millisecond of this movie that doesn't bristle with the raw energy of an artist."

Elsewhere in the interview, Stewart discussed her desire to work outside the United States. She said she wants to make films abroad and "then shove them down the throat of the American people," while reflecting on Hollywood’s direction under Donald Trump. Stewart previously clashed publicly with Trump in 2012, when he posted multiple messages about her personal life following her widely publicized scandal.

Looking back, Stewart admitted she struggles to imagine remaining in the US but still wants to reach American audiences. "But I don't want to give up completely. I'd like to make movies in Europe and then shove them down the throat of the American people," she said. Despite her criticism, she remains hopeful about change, adding, "Reality is breaking completely under Trump. But we should take a page out of his book and create the reality we want to live in."

Since then, Stewart has spoken openly about her sexuality, once describing herself as "so gay" on Saturday Night Live. In April last year, she married longtime partner Dylan Meyer in a private ceremony at Los Angeles restaurant Casita Del Campo, marking another defining chapter in a career that continues to evolve on her own terms.