When a skittish Kristen Stewart walked her first red carpet in months at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of On the Road Thursday night in Canada, she had the support of her fans.
After the Twilight star was caught cheating on costar/boyfriend of three years Robert Pattinson in July, the 22-year-old actress gave her first interviews with the press, keeping the focus on the new film. “Dude, I’m really happy that they’re here for On the Road, ” Stewart told MTV News Thursday of her well-wishers. “I think most of them were fans before I had anything to do with [Twilight], which is why they’re here anyways, so it’s awesome.”
Her devotees held signs at the premiere that read, “Talent, Beauty, Strength and Courage — We stand by Kristen always,” and “We are always with you Kristen Stewart.”
But some Twilight fans were disappointed the actress couldn’t attend the 2012 Video Music Awards in Los Angeles with Pattinson and her costars, who presented a new trailer for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2. In the clip, Bella (Stewart) is now a blood-thirsty vampire and hunts a mountain lion. “I don’t like cats. I’m a dog person, You know what I’m saying?” she joked with MTV.
In another interview on the red carpet with Marie Claire U.K., Stewart opened up about how much filming On the Road — which is based on Jack Kerouac‘s American classic about the Beat Generation — meant to her.
“I personally always feel an enormous amount of pressure before I got into any film. In this case,” she said, shaking her head. “Just to feel not like a bunch of stupid kids that are fans of the books because it’s free and it’s fun, it’s so much more than that,” Stewart explained.
In the film, Stewart stars as the seductive Marylou, who is the 16-year-old wife of Dean Moriarty, played by Garrett Hedlund. She added, “To know that we’re allowed to know the intimate personal lives of the people who made this happen and make sure to do them justice. And feel literally like every time you don’t do something right, you look up and say ‘I’m sorry.’ Or you look up and say, ‘Thank you for letting me be here.’ “
