Vanity Fair UK – September 2019

about first reading
the book sounds holy
and indoctrinating,
as if Stewart main-
lined the words. “The
way [Yuknavitch]
talks about having a
body, and the shame of having that. The
way that she’s really dirty, embarrassing,
weird, gross, a girl. It was a coming-of-age
story I haven’t seen yet. I grew up watch-
ing fucking American Pie, these dudes
jacking off in their socks like it was the
most normal thing, and it was hilarious.
Imagine a girl coming—it’s like, what,
so scary and bizarre. I feel like I started
reading her stuff, and she was articulating
things that I’m like, ‘Dude, I didn’t have
the words for that, but thank you.’”
She wrote Yuknavitch an email. Their
connection was fast—they both paint it
as fated, like some shared undercurrent.
Stewart has since written and edited a
draft. She’s read it out loud to Yuknavitch
and her husband, who both then cried
and held each other while Stewart threw
her tattered copy of the book across the
room. She was obliterated, relieved.
“It’s harder for me to be an actor as
I’m getting older. I’m more comfortable
in the idea of making something from
top to bottom, rather than giving myself
to [it]. There are certain actors who are
out of their minds and so transient in
their presence that they can actually
convince themselves and others of any-
thing,” she says. “I have a harder time
doing that as I get older.”

W

hat nearly capsizes Stew-
art guides her, provokes her
to get scrappy. The Chro-
nology of Water accessed
what Yuknavitch calls Stewart’s “nomad
code.” The actor moved to Portland for a
few weeks and wrote, occasionally parking
outside of Yuknavitch’s home and sleep-
ing in a Sprinter van with her dog Cole.
She tells me that she allows for stuff or
story to occur in time, and for the miracle of
instinct to kick in. “Even if there’s one little
clam to be plucked in a sea of shit, even if
there’s one scene or a line, I need to get
closer to that, I need to live that. There’s
no equation you can really rely on.”
She tells me about the type of film-
making that compels her—that might, I
imagine, function as her compass when
she directs her own film. “I love movies
that don’t proclaim to know anything but

that literally splatter themselves all over

the place, and then somehow, by the

end of it, you realize that the only reason

they were able to do so was because they

were held so preciously by somebody,

in that scaffolding. I love Cassavetes. I

love all the shit that made us think we

can make small movies about things that

aren’t plot-driven. But are soul-driven and

explorative.” She speaks about movies not

romantically, but as the most disclosing

format for arranging what’s unfinished.

I’ve never met anyone so synchro-

nously chill and switched on, shaking

her leg repeatedly but speaking in rapt

chains of thought. She seems deeply

clued into the collateral nature of her

intuition. She’s hung up on getting things

right. Assayas calls her “an actor of the

first take.” And Stewart, reflecting on

her own writing—the script, her poet-

ry—lights up when she tells me there is

nothing more satisfying than finding the

exact word to communicate a feeling. “I

remember being little and getting crazy

anxiety thinking that there were things

that you could never express.” That

particular tension she attaches herself

to—of being open to the unexplained yet

hell-bent on “nailing it”—is essential to

Stewart’s potency.

“She’s not adapting to anything the

industry will want her to do or anything

an agent in his right mind would ask her

to do. She has been protecting herself,

and she has been able to do only what she

feels is right,” says Assayas, describing

her solo, psychological choreography in

Personal Shopper. “I was scared with the

places she would go.”

Considering that film’s haunted, more

apparitional elements, I ask Stewart: Do

you believe in ghosts? “I talk to them,” she

responds. “If I’m in a weird, small town,

making a movie, and I’m in a strange

apartment, I will literally be like, ‘No,

please, I cannot deal. Anyone else, but it

cannot be me.’ Who knows what ghosts

are, but there is an energy that I’m really

sensitive to. Not just with ghosts, but with

people. People stain rooms all the time.”

Driving her car—a black Porsche Cay-

enne—Stewart navigates narrow roads

and swerving drivers as if she were play-

ing a video game. “Jesus, fuck. Are you

seeing this?” I nod. “What the fuck? This

is not normal.” She grabs the wheel with

both hands: “Move over!” Her flash-

fury rises, but just as quick, expires. We

talk about Jean Seberg’s French. “Her

“Who knows

what ghosts

are, but

there is

an energy I’m

sensitive to.

Not just

with ghosts,

but with

people.”

FANCY FREE

Dress and shoes by
Saint Laurent by
Anthony Vaccarello;
earrings by Harry
Winston; tights by
CALZEDONIA.

SEPTEMBER 2019 VANITY FAIR 65