Kristen Stewart fans may have been disappointed that the Twilight
superstar did not make an appearance at last week's MTV Video Music
Awards, but crowds here in Toronto had the chance to see the actress on
the red carpet for the North American premiere of Walter Salles' On The
Road along with fellow cast members Garrett Hedlund, Kirsten Dunst, Amy
Adams and Sam Riley. Stewart spoke with ML about the part she had
actually landed before she filmed her first Twilight installment.
Stewart shared her thoughts on the steamy relationship between her
character Marylou and Hedlund's Dean Moriarty - a life-long relationship
that was rife with affairs, drugs and a wild ride on the road.
"They really are 'simpatico.' It was a tumultuous relationship. And
it's hard to love like that, but they were so in love with each other
and you don't know this from reading the book, but they stayed lovers
until the end of his life," Stewart said during a conversation with ML at a Toronto hotel over the weekend.
Stewart first read On The Road as a high school freshman. A short time
afterward, she was approached by director Walter Salles who had been
told to consider Stewart for the part of Marylou after fellow filmmakers
saw her in Sean Penn's Into The Wild and suggested that he consider the
young actress. The project took a number of years before the actual
shoot commenced and in the meantime, Stewart began doing the enormously
popular Twilight series, propelling her fame into the stratosphere.
"I got the [On The Road] job on the spot and I drove away vibrating," Stewart said.
In the film version of the book written by Jack Kerouac, Stewart plays
the unconventional free-spirit Marylou, the former wife and still
frequent lover of Dean Moriarty, a fast-talking charismatic with an
insatiable libido. Dean and best friend Sal (Sam Riley), a young writer
whose life is shaken after Dean's arrival take to the road. Marylou
frequently accompanies Sal and Dean's travels across the country in
adventures fueled by sex, drugs and the pursuit of the "It" - a quest
for understanding and personal fulfillment.
"He kind of raised her and she always had a place in his heart, even
though there were a lot of spots in that heart, but she was definitely
one in the center and the same goes the other way around," Stewart said of Marylou and Dean, the On The Road names of the real-life individuals described by Kerouac. "They both helped each other grow up."
One of the seminal works of literature of post-war America, On The Road
took decades to be made into a film, even after Francis Ford Coppola
acquired the filmmaking rights to the story. Stewart said she believes
that society may have not been ready to see On The Road in theaters in
the immediate years after the book was published, acknowledging that the
film, which has not yet been rated, is racy.
"I think it's a good time to see this story visually because we are
not shocked by some of the things that we were so shocked by before and
it would have veiled it,"
said Stewart. "It would have been so shocking seeing people
doing drugs and having sex that you wouldn't have seen the spirit of [On
the Road]. You wouldn't have seen the message behind it. Maybe it would
have been good because it would have forced people to look, but maybe
they weren't able to do it then."
She also expressed the need for young people to have dreams and a zest
for life, similarly to the characters in the film, even if those dreams
are not fully comprehended.
"At that stage of your life there's so much ahead of you, at least
it feels that way. At that age you need to have a faith and feelings you
can't articulate yet because at some point you need to hold onto them
and you'll find the words to describe them."
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