Kristen is perfect as Bella

LOS ANGELES, California – All of Hollywood these days is abuzz with only one thing: Twilight. And much of the hoopla has been mostly centered around Robert Pattinson, the handsome British actor who portrays Edward Cullen, arguably the most popular and most gorgeous vampire ever written in modern fiction.

Kristen Stewart, the young actress portraying Bella Swan, the movie’s leading female character and the object of Edward’s deep affection, has been understandably albeit unfairly relegated to the background.

It is no secret that Twilight’s core fans are made up mainly of teenage girls who have not been too shy in announcing their devotion and love for Edward.

Edward is so popular that Robert has seen himself being mobbed by throngs of young girls wherever he goes. There is an incredible news report that a mall in San Francisco was forced to shut down for several hours after mall security failed to control the crowd that gathered in anticipation of an announced Twilight promo stop by Robert. There’s a girl in New York who was reported to have asked Rob to “bite” her.

All these are not lost on 18-year-old Kristen and she has nothing but only nice words for her co-star. “He has real good work ethics. He is really working all the time,” she says. The STAR met with the actress at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Rodeo Drive during the junket for Summit Entertainment’s Twilight. 

“I want everybody to be happy. Everybody’s going to see things differently. So many girls are obsessed with the books and want to be Bella, which does make it difficult. I hope, really, really sincerely, that everybody likes it,” she adds.

Twilight starts with her character, Bella, moving from sun-drenched Arizona to the cloud-covered town of Forks, Washington. There, Bella unexpectedly meets the handsome and mysterious Edward, who turns out to be a vampire with whom she falls “madly and hopelessly, irrevocably in love.” Although the entire series of four books was all told from her character’s perspective, it is her love interest that has received the most loyal devotion from mostly female fans.

The search for actors to portray Bella took some time. Producers discovered that it was an incredible task to find a young girl that could carry the weight of a popular franchise and the necessary experience to be able to hit all the nuances that is required of a young 17-year-old transplant who has fallen in love with a young vampire.

“Kristen has an amazing number of movies under her belt,” author Stephenie Meyer says. “Bella has a lot of drama going and Kristen’s experience came into play there. She has a devastating vulnerability about her that’s so perfect for Bella.”

Asked if she was a fan of the series, Kristen admitted not being familiar with the books until after she was cast. “There was something about Twilight that everywhere I looked I was, like, how did I miss this?” she confesses. “Everybody I knew had read it. It’s a passionate, passionate book and I understand why the fans are also as diehard.”

Like Bella, does she see herself falling in love with a vampire also?

“I don’t know,” she replies. “In the beginning, she doesn’t know what she was doing and she ultimately falls in love with the person that he is fighting inside. He is a vampire and on another side he’s a human. What transpires between them has nothing to do with her and nothing to do with him, it’s physiological. It’s, like, undeniable — it hurts! There is a fine line between love and hate. I guess if I had that feeling I would never quit.”

Just like her onscreen character, Kristen is not like your usual starlet. She’s not the type who frequents bars and pretends to dislike the attention she creates. She prefers the circuitous route to stardom while she quietly tries to perfect her craft. “I’m an actor because I want to be an actor,” she declares.

The pretty actress is not new to show business. She has steadily carved a name in the industry where thousands come but only a few handful gets the chance to shine. As a child, she appeared with Jodie Foster in the David Fincher thriller Panic Room. Last year, she made critical headlines when she starred opposite Emile Hirsch in Sean Penn’s highly-acclaimed drama Into the Wild.

On the day she met with this writer, she was wearing a bracelet made of beer tops and her fingernails needed some trimming. “This is for a part I am doing,” she explains. “I can’t take it off. I play a stripper, a prostitute, somebody who lives off the street.” She was to fly back to New Orleans to finish the movie as soon as the junket was over.

It is no accident indeed why Robert seems to be hogging the limelight; Kristen has other movie obligations to fulfill.

Days after the interview, Kristen would join the cast during the star-studded premiere of Twilight where, as usual, Robert attracted the most attention from shrieking fans.

Twilight is now showing in theaters.