Kristen Stewart is just 25, but the actress has had a helluva last few years. “I lit my universe on fire, and I watched it burn,” Twilight‘s leading lady admitted to Marie Claire in its upcoming August issue of her rapid ascent to fame.
Forced to ascribe to the Hollywood normal when taking on the role of Bella in the smash vampire film franchise, Stewart couldn‘t pinpoint a time when she decided to throw in the towel and embrace her inner rebel, but as she told Marie Claire, she was awfully happy when it happened.
“Speaking very candidly, [the Twilight years were] a really traumatic period in my early twenties that kick-started something in me that was a bit more . . . feral,” mused the star, who is currently filming Ang Lee‘s military drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. “I’m really proud that I am able to move forward and not fall into every mental crater. That’s a new thing for me. Age has made me smarter and calmer. And it is f–king awesome.”
Once Stewart became hot and heavy with her Twilight leading man Robert Pattinson, and later had an affair with her married Snow White director Rupert Sanders, things started to come crashing down. “Between ages 15 and 20, it was really intense. I was constantly anxious. I was kind of a control freak. If I didn’t know how something was going to turn out, I would make myself ill, or just be locked up or inhibited in a way that was really debilitating.”
In an effort to step out of the shadows and say “f–k it all,” Stewart told Marie Claire, she cut her hair. But rather than give herself a makeover because of a guy, she did it for a girl — herself. “My hair was such a crutch. I looked ‘sexy’ no matter what. I could hide behind it. As soon as I didn’t have all that hair, I had to let my face hang out,” Stewart said. “I felt more confident than I had in a really long time. And it felt really good. Maybe to most people long hair is prettier. But then what? Is your main goal in life to be desired? That is boring as f–k.”
