'Twilight' saga brings Kristen Stewart five-year acting gig

Few actors get a chance to play one character over the course of five or more feature films — that is a club usually reserved for men playing James Bond or members of the "Harry Potter" cast. But Kristen Stewart joined that exclusive club when it was announced this spring that the final installment of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" saga, "Breaking Dawn," would be cleaved in two.

So over the course of four years and five films, the sizable audience for Meyer's books will strongly identify Stewart with Bella Swan, much as Daniel Radcliffe has grown to be many readers' primary image of The Boy Who Lived. Stewart, speaking during a press day for "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at Los Angeles' Four Seasons Hotel, characterized her unusual position as a genuine gift.

"This is a really unique situation," Stewart said, leaning on the banquet table in front of her as she considered the impact of her casting. "I get to play her for a really long time, and that's also a serious indulgence and something that's really lucky, because I feel really sad when I lose a character at the end of a short shoot, which is typically six weeks on a small movie. It's definitely, obviously the one role that's put me in this sort of epic position.

"I really don't think about my career in terms of planning it out and what this does for me," she said. "This was a part that I just really wanted to play, and luckily I got to do it for a really long time."

While "Twilight" was the film that made her a star, Stewart's career started nearly a decade earlier, when she was discovered by an agent during an elementary school play. She earned some minor roles before being cast in the indie drama "The Safety of Objects." Then, at age 12, she played opposite Jodie Foster in David Fincher's "Panic Room." Stewart received positive reviews for her performance, and she worked steadily for the next six years, appearing in "Cold Creek Manor," "Zathura," and "Into the Wild" before being cast in the first "Twilight" film.

While vampires recently cut a wide swath through popular culture, Stewart said the supernatural aspects of "The Twilight Saga" are only part of its appeal. Even if she weren't caught in a romantic triangle between a vampire and a werewolf, Stewart said that Bella Swan's relationship problems and conflicts in "Eclipse" would still be compelling. The 20-year-old actress acknowledges that the supernatural element helps build interest in Meyer's series, but "Twi-hards" would not stick around if the characters were undead or intermittently canine but not relatable.

"I think that if you took all the mythical aspects of the story that it would still stand as a really strong and interesting thing to be a part of," Stewart said. "I think the whole vampire and the whole werewolf thing are really good sort of plot devices. If all of that was gone, they would still be the same people. I don't think it's a big phenomenon because of the vampire mythical aspect.

"It definitely takes a good story and it raises the stakes and it makes it a little bit more interesting, but I think it's just about how whole the characters are and how easy it is to have faith in them and be sort of addicted to them," she said. "They let you down a lot and then pick themselves back up. I don't think it has anything to do with the vampire thing. I think that just makes it a little cooler."

This summer, once she finishes promoting "Eclipse," Stewart begins filming her role as Marylou in "On the Road," director Walter Salles' ("The Motorcycle Diaries") take on Jack Kerouac's classic Beat novel. After that, it's back to dark hair and darker contact lenses for the "Breaking Dawn" films, directed by Bill Condon ("Dreamgirls," "Kinsey").

Stewart said the cast and crew was almost certain that "Breaking Dawn" would be split into two movies, but they were under strict secrecy rules until the studio gave final approval. She said the division will definitely improve the storytelling, allowing the films to include more from the novel — a frequent criticism of the earlier adaptations.

"The shoot is going to be something like six months," Stewart said. "We start in October. I think we're not going to be finished until maybe March or something, maybe February. I clearly don't really look at the schedule.

"I had to hold onto this forever," she said, referring to the two-part "Dawn." "They've been talking about it for a really long time, and we all definitely knew that it was going to be two movies forever now. It's been really hard not to say that. We're all really stoked on that."