Kristen Stewart Almost Died Filming Her Best Movie
Kristen Stewart says she nearly died filming 2020s Underwater
Actors often discuss how they must tap into the inner recesses of their brains in order to bring a Hollywood role to life. Most of the time, that just means dredging up a sad memory in order to convincingly cry onscreen, but Kristen Stewart took things to the next level when she agreed to star in the movie Underwater.
It turns out that she is intensely scared of drowning, and as she said in an interview with the Toronto Sun, “My fundamental aversion to water, along with my claustrophobia, made me both the worst and the perfect candidate to make this movie because it genuinely did disturb me.”
Kristen Stewart has a well-earned reputation for being blunt, and she doesn’t hold back when discussing the filming of Underwater. For example, she told reporters that, like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, “I almost died making this movie.” But Stewart knew from the beginning that she would have to face her fears in order to make the film, and she figured the honesty of her reactions would make for a better performance.
This is most likely what Kirsten Stewart was referring to when she said that her fear of the water and her claustrophobia made her “the worst and the perfect candidate” for the movie. She’s a perfect candidate because the kind of terror she had to experience onscreen perfectly mirrors her own anxieties when the cameras aren’t rolling. At the same time, she’s the “worst” candidate because she’s an actor whose biggest moments involved genuine fear instead of acting.
But while Kristen Stewart may downplay her abilities as an actor, most who watch Underwater have praised her for the raw power of her performance. There was a time when she was mostly known for the Twilight films, and some fans and critics thought it might be difficult for her to escape the long, glitter-filled shadow of those movies. These days, however, Stewart has successfully reinvented herself as a kind of modern-day scream queen.
For example, Underwater is a movie that shamelessly serves as a kind of underwater version of the Ridley Scott classic film Alien. The movie features researchers who live and work in an undersea research facility. Soon, they find themselves on the run from a mysterious creature who is picking them off one at a time while they are trapped underwater (just like Ripley and her fellow crew were stuck in space in the original 1979 film).
And it seems like Kristen Stewart developed a real taste for starring in horror movies after the 2020 Underwater. Last year, she starred in David Cronenberg’s fantastic and horrifying movie Crimes of the Future and knocked the role completely out of the park. When she’s starring in movies this creepy, it’s hard to remember the days when the actor was mostly known for obsessing over a glowing vampire in movies aimed squarely at teens.
Ultimately, Kristen Stewart has revealed herself to be a dedicated and driven actor who is willing to put her life on the line for her craft. And whenever Hollywood tries to stereotype her, Stewart finds an even weirder acting challenge (including starring in the upcoming Love Me, a movie about a buoy and a satellite falling in love) and reinvents herself. Given the high quality of her most recent performances, we can’t wait to see what this beautiful actor has in store for us next.
