Kristen Stewart, after reading the script for her new film Crimes of the Future , had no idea what the story was actually about. The actress only understood the plot when she recently saw the film at its gala premiere in Cannes.
The grim film is set in a near future, in which plastic and rust dominate. Some human bodies adapt and spontaneously create new organs that survive in this toxic environment.
Stewart plays an official of a semi-legal government organization that records this development. “Director David Cronenberg asked me for the film,” says the 32-year-old Hollywood actress at the Cannes festival.
“I called him and said, ‘I have no idea what this story is about.’ But I’d like to discover it, so let’s do it.”
Even during the shooting it was not all clear. “We would often get together with the other actors after a day of shooting and wonder: what the fuck are we doing?” But Stewart saw the film in its entirety on Monday evening during the gala premiere in Cannes: “Suddenly the story became completely clear to me.”
‘I enjoy painful shots’
People walked away because they found images too explicit, the actress notes. “There’s a lot of talk about those people and the fact that some find David’s films difficult to watch,” she adds.
“But I have the opposite. Every shot he takes, every crazy image of something pulsating or bleeding, or every shot that hurts or confuses me, I enjoy it. My mouth drops open and I want to see more.”