She got a lot of flak for the melodramatic Twilight saga at the time, but the actually awesome Kristen Stewart is seemingly revisiting that insanely popular vampire series with a fresh perspective: namely, that Twilight is “such a gay movie.”
A then-teenaged Stewart, of course, became a household name after starring as Bella Swan in the five-film romantic fantasy franchise, opposite her co-star and famous ex Robert Pattinson as hunky vamp Edward Cullen.
And while the now-adult actress has definitely put her “young and stupid” Twilight days of swooning over sparkly vampire skin far behind her where career is concerned—Stewart snagged the prestigious César Award for her work in Clouds of Sils Maria and earned an Oscar nomination for her acclaimed performance as the late Princess Diana in Spencer—she did recently acknowledge Twilight‘s surprising “gay inclinations” during an interview with Variety:
I can only see it now. I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.
That “Mormon woman” that Stewart is referencing is author Stephanie Meyers, who penned the four novels in the Twilight book series on which the films are based. Much of the story centers around the forbidden romance between human Bella and vampire Edward and how her feelings for him—as well as for werewolf Jacob, played by the aforementioned Taylor Lautner—cause seismic shifts in both their worlds.
Though both the onscreen and offscreen coupling between Stewart and Pattinson was of the heterosexual sort, the actress memorably came out as “so gay” while hosting Saturday Night Live in 2017. During her opening monologue, Stewart addressed Donald Trump, who was very strangely upset about her heavily publicized breakup from Pattinson five years prior and frequently took to Twitter to criticize the film star. She famously told him:
Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you’re really not going to like me now because I’m hosting SNL and I’m like, so gay, dude.
In the fifteen years since Twilight premiered, Stewart has publicly embraced her queerness, from starring in lesbian rom-coms to wanting to play a gay superhero to being seen out-and-about with her fiancée, screenwriter-actress Dylan Meyer, at industry events like the Academy Awards and the Los Angeles of the Hulu docuseries Living for the Dead, which Stewart executive-produced.
As for being more open and candid about her personal life, Stewart told Variety:
It’s not that I wasn’t scared. It was just that there was no other way to live.
And the star’s very public coming out had positive ripple effects for other queer young people, she tells the outlet:
Oh, you have no idea. Every single woman that I’ve ever met in my whole life who ever kissed a girl in college is like, ‘Yeah, I mean, me too.’ I’m constantly joking with my girlfriend. I’ll be sitting there and be like, ‘She’s gay too. Everyone’s gay.’
Stewart’s latest role will give even more queer representation to the LGBTQ+ community in the upcoming A24 movie Love Lies Bleeding, in which she stars as reclusive gym manager Lou who falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder played Katy O’Brian. Catch that one on the 2024 movie schedule, out on March 8.