ShareThisWhen Kristen Stewart was making "Adventureland," she was just another young actress whom most people had never heard of. Then "Twilight" came out and changed all of that. In this creepy romantic tale, based on a popular teen novel, she plays a high-school student who falls truly, madly, deeply in love with a vampire. The movie grossed more than $370 million worldwide and propelled her to stardom.
Stewart is on the cover of teen magazines, answering questions about whether she's romantically involved with "Twilight" co-star Robert Pattinson (they're "just friends," she insists; her actual beau is actor Michael Angarano) and her style of dressing ("I've always had an aversion to looking sexy -- it's gross, you know," she tells Nylon).
Stewart, who turns 19 on April 9, showed up at the Sundance Film Festival swathed in layers to protect her from the chill and possibly from fans who would have a hard time recognizing her. She's learning to deal with becoming suddenly famous, continuing to live with her family to keep things as normal as possible.
A definite advantage of fame is to be able to call attention to "Adventureland," an independent film that screened at Sundance.
"Well, that part is good," Stewart says. "I want as many people as possible to see this movie."
There are no vampires in the sweet coming-of-age tale about a college graduate whose parents are forced to renege on their promise to send him to Europe because they're broke. (The script by Greg Mottola, who also directs, is set in the 1980s but now seems eerily prophetic.) Jesse Eisenberg stars as the young man, who instead finds work at a decrepit amusement park. Stewart plays a fellow employee, a confused rich girl who is far more sexually advanced than he is.
The co-stars share a couch at a house in Park City, Utah, giggling like the friends they became while making "Adventureland." Eisenberg, 25, has been acting for 10 years, but has yet to land that career-making role. He's best known for a couple of indies: "Roger Dodger" and "The Squid and the Whale."
Eisenberg describes his character in "Adventureland" as "a smart guy who is saddled with a job that is beneath him intellectually. That is an important thing to do because there are a lot of smart people doing jobs that are beneath them."
He and Stewart both grew up around show business -- though their experiences were quite different. Eisenberg's mother is a professional clown who performed at children's birthday parties in their hometown of New Brunswick, N.J., for 20 years. "She'd dress in white face and leave the family every weekend," he recalls, adding with a laugh. "If I ever wind up doing what she is doing I will, like, kill myself."
Stewart's father is a stage manager and TV producer who has worked for Fox. Her mother, who is from Australia, is a script supervisor in Hollywood.
"She works very close with the director, so I got special treatment when I would visit her on set," says Stewart, who was most excited to be on the "Flintstones" set when she was 5. "I knew about the process before I ever made a movie. I was just comfortable on a set. It is a very foreign place to be if you're not used to it."
In third grade, she sang a song in a school play. This being Southern California, someone in the film industry happened to be in the audience and called her parents about having her audition.
"My parents were nice enough to actually run it by me, I mean instead of just, like, hanging up. They were, like, 'Do you want to do this?' They were not very enthusiastic. They are realistic about the business. It is not a normal thing to be successful at it."
The audition was "a general cattle call" designed to let agents have a look at potential child actors. Stewart doesn't remember being nervous.
"I didn't really have anything to be worried about. It wasn't something I needed. It was, like, let's give this a shot. If it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be devastated. Now if you were to take it away from me, I don't really know what I would do."
Stewart did land an agent and by the seventh grade had dropped out of school and was taking correspondence courses to pursue a career full time. Before "Twilight," her best-known role was as Jodie Foster's moody daughter in "Panic Room." Their performances were made more believable by the actresses' physical resemblance.
Both she and Eisenberg were relieved that Mottola cast them without an audition.
"A lot of times when you have a romantic element there is this labored audition process where you have to see if people can get along with each other," Eisenberg says.
Stewart is a fan of "The Squid and the Whale" and was delighted to find out she would be playing opposite Eisenberg and that "they didn't hire someone a little more obvious -- like a young Brad Pitt."
"It is a bit uncomfortable meeting somebody you then have to have a romantic relationship with in a week. It's a strange thing to do," Eisenberg says.
Teasing Stewart, he tells her she will be allotted more than the usual 15 minutes of fame. Because a sequel to "Twilight" ("The Twilight Saga: New Moon") is in the works, "You will get at least 30 minutes."
(E-mail Ruthe Stein at pinkletters(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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