Kristen Stewart and Aaron Stanford Eat Cake

Before her cinema bow as Twilight's Bella, excellent and versatile young actress Kristen Stewart appeared in a wide variety of films like The Messengers, In the Land of Women and Into the Wild. Favoring characters she can really sink her teeth info, Kristen often delves into the indie film world. Her role as Georgia, a physically-handicapped teen seeking a hook-up in The Cake Eaters, is a prime example of this young woman's extraordinary talent. (Note: The term "Cake Eaters" in this film, refers to rich folks who "have it all").

Cute Aaron Stanford played a young dad/hero in the gruesome horror flick The Hills Have Eyes and was Pyro in the X-Men films. In "Cake", he plays a 20-something fellow in a small town who is a caretaker by nature and is desperately in need of someone to love. Needless to say, the two young people form a romantic relationship in this character-driven film.

We sat down in West Hollywood with the casually-dressed duo last week. Picture Aaron in red sweater and jeans and Kristen in cute gray skinny jeans, royal blue Van's hightop tennies and a hoodie with plaid lining over a tank. She was wearing her usual silver rings and we don't know if it was a tattoo or she just wrote someone's phone number on her left hand! We noted that Kristen likes to be comfortable at interviews and sat with her legs crossed Indian-style in her chair. Aaron was a teensy more formal but fun. Kristen naturally coins her own cute, clever words like "wigage" and "ownage". Let's chat.....

TeenHollywood: Kristen, you are also in the upcoming film Adventureland. What was the order of doing that and The Cake Eaters?

Kristen: This definitely came first., Adventureland I did last year around October I think we finished up.

TeenHollywood: How did you develop this character? Her disease [Friedreich's Ataxia] causes slurred speech and an awkward walk.

Kristen: I was so intimated by the character that I didn't start any physicality before, literally, the first day of shooting. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. [Director] Mary Stuart [Masterson] set me up with a lot of material and information and Sam and Alex Bode, they're two girls that have the disease and they were too generous. They're an amazing family. They recorded a lot of video of themselves speaking and Mary Stuart interviewing them. I was just sort of obsessed with it for maybe three weeks prior and then delved into it very impulsively. It was just something that I had to wrap my head [around]. I couldn't physically do it until the day we started shooting because it felt like I was faking something and, until it was actually real in the moment we were actually doing it and I was actually playing this person, then it felt right to do it.

TeenHollywood: If you were approached for another role where you had to do specific physical mannerisms, would you be more comfortable with that now or still be nervous?

Kristen: Yeah, I would probably be just as nervous. But, that's sort of what drives you to work so hard. That's why you're [doing this]. It's a driving force. I'm a little bit more ambitious than I was when I was sixteen or fifteen or however old I was when we made this. I'm more willing to take on big things.

TeenHollywood: Aaron, what was your take on your character? In a way he's very simple and sweet.

Aaron: Beagle, he's unique. He's definitely an eccentric kind of character but one of the things that struck me about him was just his purity. He's an incredibly decent and good person. He's the caretaker of his family. He's the youngest and he's the least noticed but he's the one who does all the work. He's also a character with a tremendous amount of love to give and he hadn't ever really found anyone to give it to. Then he finds this other person [15-year-old Georgia, played by Kristen] and it's difficult because of conventional morality. Is she too young? Is this right? Is this wrong? But, the great thing about the relationship for the two of them is it's a situation to which conventional morality does not apply at all because her character is going to die. She only has a limited amount of time in which to live her life so the conventions sort of fly out the window in that situation.

TeenHollywood: What was it about the script that made you want to do the parts? What did you love about it?

Aaron: I loved a lot of things about it. I loved mainly the characters. Pretty amazing, complex and fascinating characters, great relationships and a great story and that's all I need to like a script. I read, I got invested in it. I started to care about these people and care about what's happening and I'm interested to explore these sort of fractured relationships.

Kristen: It's a really quaint little movie but it is so madly triumphant in a way that there are not big story points. It's not like a whole lot happens but, somehow, at the end of the movie, you feel like these people really accomplished something. And, like he said, any time you feel a responsibility for the characters, like you don't want to let them down. Anytime they are whole enough for you to want to give a month of your life to, then, obviously, it's something that you do.

TeenHollywood: Kristen, what was it like working with Mary Stuart Masterson as a first time director? She's been an amazing actress for a long time.

Kristen: She didn't seem like a first time director I can tell you that. Probably because she's been acting since she was much younger than me. She was thirteen or something. But, she's very, and this is going to sound way cold, facilitating. The most nurturing. She really creates an environment for you that you just feel like you're in the best position to give as much as you can possibly give and, it sounds like of lame, but she's really one of the most amazing role models I've ever had. She's very ambitious and I should learn from her.

TeenHollywood: Kristen, your character says to Aaron's when you are finally going to make love, "you don't work out much, do you"? [Kristen and Aaron burst into laughter. She keeps laughing]. You look good, Aaron but did you say to yourself, 'I'd better not get too ultra buff before doing this movie'?

Aaron: It wasn't super tough to look like I don't work out. I'm not the most Diesel guy out there but it was a trick of the light to hide all my ponderous bulk. They put highlighted make-up under all the shadows of my pectoral muscles and six pack. [Kristen is still laughing]. It was a suspension of dis-belief. But it was fun. I loved exploring the vulnerability of that and being a man in his 20's who is completely put back into his place by a 15-year-old girl. He wants to shut off the light and hide. It was fun.

TeenHollywood: Georgia actually looks hungry in that scene.

Aaron: She has 'hungry eyes'.

Kristen: [reference to Dirty Dancing where that song was used] And we were in the Catskills too, very amusing.

Aaron: Perfect.

TeenHollywood: She's so anxious to have this affirmation of her femininity. How did you get into the mind of that 15-year-old girl? What she was thinking at that moment.

Kristen: I have to say that the movie starts out and her objective is clear. She's definitely after something [a hook-up] but I feel like she's smart enough to realize that, if she didn't find in him what she finds, then she wouldn't have gone through with it. I don't think she's just finding a weak person to conquer. They fill each other up in a way they've [never had before]. It's hard to define the way people click. They find solace in each other. That's the thing. When they're around each other it's like [she takes in an excited breath].

Aaron: Yeah, I think you can see that in the moment when he almost leaves and comes back. You just see that. They just hug. They want that connection. They want to be close to each other. It can't just be about a girl wanting to have sex. That may be what begins it but it can't just be about that. Otherwise, it won't mean anything and you can't be invested in it.

Kristen: I totally agree.

TeenHollywood: Georgia gets a cute but radical haircut in the film. I assume that was a wig?

Kristen: It was written in the script that there was a haircutting scene. She was going to have longer hair, then shorter which meant that I had to have some sort of 'wigage' [laughter]. But, to have it so extreme, sort of represented her untouched virginity thing. Very symbolic-heavy.

TeenHollywood: Georgia's mom in the film takes some gorgeous black and white photos of you. Did you get to keep any of them?

Aaron: They were great!

Kristen: Yeah, actually. I think I have two of them.

TeenHollywood: Who actually took them?

Kristen: She's a friend of Mary Stuart's. She did it before we started shooting.

TeenHollywood: Beagle and Georgia ride around on his little scooter. Was that actually you two riding on the scooter and were there any spills?

Aaron: That was us.

Kristen: Yeah.

Aaron: We were worried about taking some spills but, no, we managed.

Kristen: You managed really well.

TeenHollywood: Kristen, you once said that your movie Speak had a special place in your heart as it nurtured your fondness of acting. How did this experience compare because this is such a character-driven piece as well.

Kristen: Just like every other character-driven piece I've done, it's weird how you change and grow with every movie you do. Almost with every day of shooting. It's always surprising and always sort of amazing because it's like 'wow! It's just gonna continue and continue and continue'. [This] was just something I felt very compelled to do and, at the end of it, I grieved the character for a long time. I held on to her but I grew as a person. I had some pretty heavy themes and issues running through my head most of the time when we were making the movie. It's a hard subject matter but, as you would imagine, you would go for something like that.

TeenHollywood: What was it like between scenes with this interesting cast? Did you go hang out or eat out or anything?

Aaron: We all hung out. We were up in Hudson, New York.

Kristen: Population, twenty.

Aaron: It is tiny. We hung out together all the time. It was great to get to know people. Elizabeth Ashley....and Bruce Dern [who plays Aaron's dad in the film] was fascinating. He's an amazing character. If you put him in a room at a table, you will sit there for the next five days and listen to everything he has to say and be fascinated by it. He's great.

TeenHollywood: Is this sort of movie more your speed than the blockbusters?

Kristen: No. The process of making movies, when they're on a much larger scale, you might not have such a hands-on feel where you can have a whole lot to say about what goes on creatively, that doesn't have something to do with your specific story and character. [With indie films] you have a little bit more 'ownage', I mean ownership. You can really own something if there's only a couple of people that care about it and you're all like best friends for that period of time that you're making it and it's your little project. It's easier to promote movies like this, as odd as that sounds, but making them, once you've committed to a character and you feel like they're yours and you're responsible for them and that you have to do them justice, it's sort of the same monster.

Aaron: Depends on what the blockbuster film is. It's case by case. There's a lot of sh**ty blockbuster films and a lot of sh**ty little indie films too. And there are great blockbuster films and great, tiny, little indie films so it depends on what the project is.

TeenHollywood: Since the recent interview in 'Nylon' magazine, Kristen, do you feel like you are playing with fire when you talk about the 'Twilight' fans?

Kristen: No. I love the Twilight fans. I have literally never said anything remotely negative about them. You have to stay away from certain key words that can be twisted in a negative connotation. Like the word 'psychotic' apparently, is really bad! [we laugh]. I don't understand why. I feel like it's a really humble position to take that it's not normal to find yourself in a situation where there are five thousand screaming girls and you're being literally they look at you like you're fodder. I feel like that's not normal or something I should just say 'oh, yeah. It's cool. I love 'em'. I feel like everything I said in that Nylon interview was very honest and genuine and talking about something that I am so immersed in that I have absolutely no control over and I'm just trying to stay honest and true to something that I care about.

TeenHollywood: When do you start shooting the next Twilight?

Kristen: Very soon. In a couple of weeks. March 23rd I think is the first official day of shooting.

TeenHollywood: Are you excited about taking on this next round?

Kristen: Yeah. It's interesting. It's a completely different story [than Twilight]. It entirely undermines the first. Edward is gone and, for me, like that was the whole story. It's hard for me to get past that. I don't know how Bella is going to deal with that but she matures a lot. It's a much more painful story than the first one. It's actually quite devastating. It's a smaller scale as well. She's very solitary for quite a while so that will be interesting. I'm excited about that.

TeenHollywood: Aaron, your choices, from X-Men to this, are interesting . What goes into your choices and what's next for you?

Aaron: As far as my choices go, it's the answer I give to what attracted me to the script. I try to pick characters that I find interesting and complex and that I feel I can bring something of myself to. There's also the reality of what's available to me and what I'm offered and what I can do. In terms of what's coming up next, I just shot a great...another little indie called How I Got Lost in New York. It's in post production. I play an investment banker who finds out that his father passed away and he goes on a road trip with his buddy back to St. Louis to go to the funeral but it's very funny. A lot of comedy.

TeenHollywood: Kristen, in both this film and Adventureland, you have a relationship with a person that shouldn't really be happening. [Even Edward the vampire is a 'forbidden' love]. Is it just coincidental that those sort of roles just happen for you?

Kristen: Yeah, it's coincidental. That's not a recurring theme in my life. But the stories are so different. In this film, Georgia and Beagle are right for each other. They are very, very right for each other. And, in the case of Adventureland, she's really hurting herself, deliberately hurting herself. That's what she's doing so they're different.

TeenHollywood: At the end of this film you get the idea that Georgia and Beagle will keep dating. Or is it that, for her, it's 'mission accomplished' and it's just over?

Aaron: No.

Kristen: He's going to feed her lunch

Aaron: Any flavor Jell-O she wants. It's all hers.

Kristen: They're indulging. They are going to indulge themselves. They are going to follow that.

TeenHollywood: Kristen are you still going to be directed by your mom in an upcoming project?

Kristen: I've worked on the script with her a little bit so we have delved into it, in that sense of just writing. It's called K-11. This year has gotten really insane and absolutely psychotic. But, hopefully, next year, maybe in January, that's when we hope to do the movie. It's about a dorm that isn't widely known called K-11 that is located in L.A. County Jail. It's specifically for people that can't be put into general population and they need to be protected because they would be subject to a lot of danger. They're an eclectic bunch of people. There are famous people, gay people, cross-dressers, trannies and it's a story about a guy who finds himself in that dorm and he integrates himself into this hierarchy and then breaks out of it a couple of weeks later and it's just about that two weeks of his life in this world of really sort of damaged but functioning family of people.

TeenHollywood: Who will you play?

Kristen: I play a young girl who is not a girl. Her name's Butterfly. She's autistic and that's it. That's Butterfly.

TeenHollywood: Ooookay. What would both of you hope an audience would take from this film The Cake Eaters?

Aaron: That's hard to say. I don't know if it's the sort of film that answers a lot of questions so much as asks a lot of questions. I would just hope that they would see the film and see some why that it relates to their life and somehow get some solace from that or just find something that strikes a chord in them, that moves them, that gives them any kind of emotion or experience or feeling.

Kristen: Like he said. The one thing that the movie has is an unabashedly outward sense of hope. It's a very positive movie which is commendable considering it's about a girl who is gonna die before she reaches the age of normal consensual sex. So, that's a feat in itself. Hopefully [audiences] can take from it, real characters that actually effected them for a good hour and a half.