As I noted in an earlier story about her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, the return of Kristen Stewart to the spotlight has been a long time coming. While she has stayed as far under the radar as possible with indie movies and festival darlings, Stewart has been very open about her sexuality, even when some told her to tone it down so she could one day score a Marvel gig.
Speaking with Harper’s Bazaar, Stewart talked about her decision to return to big studio franchises with the Charlie’s Angels reboot, and what kept her from taking on such projects when they were previously offered to her…
“I was informed by an old school mentality, which is – ‘you want to preserve your career and your success and your productivity, and there are people in the world who don’t like you, and they don’t like that you date girls, and they don’t like that you don’t identify as a quote-unquote “lesbian”, but you also don’t identify as a quote-unquote “heterosexual”. And people like to know stuff, so what the fuck are you?’” Stewart explained.
It used to be that a studio would shield its biggest stars from anything that would damage their reputation. So a gay actor might be paired up with a popular female actress so they can look like a normal heterosexual celebrity couple. That mentality is mostly outdated now, but we’ve seen how long it’s taken for some of the biggest studios, such as Disney, to become more inclusive. Perhaps that explains the advice/warning Stewart received from someone who told her to tone down her sexuality, which is pretty fluid, if she wanted to someday work for Marvel Studios…
“I have fully been told, ‘If you just like do yourself a favor, and don’t go out holding your girlfriend’s hand in public, you might get a Marvel movie,’” said Stewart.
She added, “I don’t want to work with people like that.”
Let’s be clear that we don’t know if it was someone from Marvel/Disney that told Stewart anything like that. But it obviously had quite an impact on her and the way she has presented herself publicly, which is to simply be herself. How audiences react to her leading role in Charlie’s Angels will go a long way in determining whether Stewart keeps making big movies. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see a reunion with Pattinson sometime in the future?
