[Kristen Stewart joins the interview]
Jesse was telling us how he first read the script and how it came about, can you tell us about you as well?
KRISTEN STEWART: I read the script in a very straight-forward and conventional way, as actors get sent these scripts from their agents. It’s a really original and strange script, I’ve really never read anything like it and I jumped at working with Jesse again. We really had a good time on Adventureland a couple of years ago, and I’ve sort of declared that we should definitely make a movie every five years. So in keeping with that, I jumped on this one.
Max [Landis] was saying to us that, Kristen, this is a role more toward your personality. Was he even accurate in saying that?
STEWART: Phoebe is a sort of straight-forward and sweet, fairly unassuming girl. I didn’t have to bring any quirks to her, I didn’t have to bring any certain things that make her very much different from myself. I think it was just about immersing myself in this extremely surreal, weird, heightened, unique, sort of – not unbelievable, it’s created in a very whole way, but in a slug line it’s like, “What?” It’s definitely not set in our reality, but it is also hyper-real in an odd way. So the character is kind of about – the difficulty for me has been about retaining her truths while still not revealing plot points I’m not supposed to in like the beginning. Then making sure that it’s consistent, and emotional, and also funny. It’s like, we’re always about to die, we’re constantly, constantly about to be like killed or having to kill somebody, and also it’s a broad comedy at the same time, so to balance that has been the difficulty. I am sort of essentially playing myself, if I was living in this -
EISENBERG: Very weird situation.
STEWART: Exactly.
Talk a little bit about the looks of your characters, we know you dyed your hair, you have a little bit of a different look yourself. How much was that in the script, how much was that working to develop it?
EISENBERG: I wanted just to wear longer hair and a wig, because the character is somebody who would not have gotten a haircut in several years. He’s somebody who has just immersed himself in nothing, in his own laziness and enjoying his own laziness. So I thought, “He would not have gotten a haircut. He wouldn’t groom himself in any kind of consistent way,” and it gives it a better turn for when he has to defend himself. So this is a guy who couldn’t be less prepared to do this.
STEWART: We had spoken to Max a bit. I think the basic idea before it was actually a real thing was that if you take the most unlikely people, like two dinky little stoner kids, Jesse Eisenberg and me, and then suddenly see them thrown into this really high-speed, and intense, and disarmingly realistic action movie, it’s funny. It doesn’t feel familiar, it’s a little bit shocking, and so in order to make that hard-hitting, which is the basis for wanting to make the movie. It’s like, I look like I also dyed my hair maybe a year ago, haven’t maintained it, my interests are fairly flippant. We’re very directionless. There’s nothing very defining about any of our looks, everything is very haphazard and comfortable and practical, and we’re just stoners, essentially. So that was all of this.
Can you guys talk a bit about the scene we’re seeing from today? I know it’s gonna take a couple of days. What you do is just kick ass and weird stuff at the supermarket. What’s your goal in the scene?
STEWART: In this scene?
Yes.
STEWART: It’s tough because I don’t know what I’m allowed to say. You know what I mean?
EISENBERG: Yeah, in an attempt to keep some, I don’t know…
They told us almost everything.
EISENBERG: Oh they told you everything.
STEWART: Everything? That sucks!
They told us I think a little more than you guys probably prefer for us to know, but this is gonna run as a separate interview so I don’t know what you should say.
STEWART: I mean, basically we’ve spent the entire movie – We start off at a point within our relationship where you could call it a little period of unrest, we’re not like too happy with each other in the beginning, and then as the movie goes on you see just how in love these two kids are. They’re really, truly obsessed with each other and it’s a very pure thing. It’s really true. Basically, him coming back to this scene to save me is kind of reconciling. When this whole thing, this really sweet, basic, simple love story [takes a turn], it’s really incredibly heart-breaking, so this whole thing is him coming back and assuming his…he becomes a man, and sort of redeems himself in every way. He really steps into the role that he should have with her, which is her fucking man, and then he gets her back, she gets him back, it’s a happy thing.