Kristen Stewart joins Untitled Kelly Reichardt Project
This news bit has been everywhere online, but just in case you’ve missed it: History-making César Award winner Kristen Stewart has joined three-time Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams and two-time Oscar nominee Laura Dern in an as yet untitled drama set in Montana to be directed by Kelly Reichardt.[1]
Deadline.com first broke the story last week (February 2015). If all goes as planned, Kristen Stewart will play Boise lawyer Beth, who, nervous after accepting a teaching position in a small Montana town, befriends a local woman, Jamie, auditing her class.[2]
Kelly Reichardt’s usual partners Neil Kopp and Anish Savjani are producing the project, which is supposed to consist of a series of vignettes based on short stories by Maile Meloy.
Also in the cast: James Le Gros (Point Break), Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows), and Sara Rodier (The Future).
Kelly Reichardt movies
Kelly Reichardt first made her mark with Old Joy (2006). Since then, she has directed Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy (2008), co-starring Lucy the Dog, and in Meek’s Cutoff (2010).
Night Moves (2013) – no connection to Arthur Penn’s 1975 film noir – is Reichardt’s most recent effort. Co-written by Jonathan Raymond, the film follows a trio of environmental extremists. In the Night Moves cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard.
Coincidentally, Eisenberg was seen opposite Kristen Stewart in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland and will once again be seen next to her in Nima Nourizadeh’s American Ultra later this year.
As for Dakota Fanning’s Kristen Stewart connection, she was a guest star – as the (quite literally) headstrong vampire Jane – in the Twilight movie sequels. Besides, Fanning and Stewart co-starred in Floria Sigismondi’s box office disappointment The Runaways.
Kristen Stewart in ‘Adventureland,’ with Jesse Eisenberg.
Kristen Stewart movies
On U.S. screens, Kristen Stewart was most recently seen in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Still Alice, which earned star Julianne Moore the 2015 Best Actress Academy Award. A bit earlier in the year, Stewart starred in Peter Sattler’s blinked-and-you-missed-it Camp X-Ray, with A Separation actor Peyman Moaadi (a.k.a. Payman Maadi).
In France and several other markets, in 2014 Stewart was also seen in Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria / Sils Maria, co-starring Juliette Binoche and Chloë Grace Moretz. Clouds of Sils Maria opens in limited release in the United States – via IFC Films – on April 10.
Now, Kristen Stewart has missed out on Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman sequel-turned-prequel The Huntsman, reportedly to bring back Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron, in addition to cast newcomers Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt.
Steven Shainberg’s dramatic comedy The Big Shoe, also featuring Elizabeth Banks and Jim Sturgess, is apparently another no-go.
But Stewart has kept herself busy all the same, focusing on independently financed fare. Besides Clouds of Sils Maria (in some markets) and American Ultra, she will next be seen in:
- Drake Doremus’ sci-fier Equals, with Nicholas Hoult.
- Tim Blake Nelson’s ensemble piece Anesthesia, with director Nelson, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll, Gloria Reuben, 1984 Best Actor Academy Award nominee Sam Waterston (The Killing Fields), and six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close (The World According to Garp, The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs).
Kristen Stewart has been in movies for more than a decade. Previous Stewart entries include:
- Walter Salles’ On the Road (2012), with Garrett Hedlund and Sam Riley.
- David Gordon Green’s Undertow (2004), with Jamie Bell and Josh Lucas.
- David Fincher’s Panic Room (2002), with Jodie Foster and Forest Whitaker.
And let’s not forget Stewart’s five Bella Swan movies, also featuring Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen and Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black:
- Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight (2008).
- Chris Weitz’s New Moon (2009).
- David Slade’s Eclipse (2010).
- Bill Condon’s Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011) and Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012).
Kristen Stewart makes César history
How did Kristen Stewart make César Award history?
A Best Supporting Actress César winner for Clouds of Sils Maria, Stewart became the first U.S. actress to take home the award. (Back in early 2003, Adrien Brody became the first American actor to win a César, for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist.)
Michelle Williams, Laura Dern Oscar nominations
[1] Michelle Williams’ three Academy Award nods were for the following:
- Best Supporting Actress for Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005), with Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Anne Hathaway.
- Best Actress for Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2010), with Ryan Gosling.
- Best Actress for Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn (2012), with this year’s Best Actor Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) and Kenneth Branagh. Williams played Marilyn Monroe to Branagh’s Laurence Olivier during the making of The Prince and the Showgirl.
Laura Dern’s two Oscar nominations:
- Best Actress for Martha Coolidge’s Rambling Rose (1991), with Diane Ladd, Lukas Haas, and Robert Duvall.
- Best Supporting Actress for Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild (2014), with Reese Witherspoon, Thomas Sadoski, and Keene McRae.
Logan, Montana
[2] Set in Logan, Montana, a Maile Meloy story titled “Travis, B.” revolves around a young, lonely, ethnically mixed cowboy and polio survivor, Chet, who falls for an out-of-town attorney, Beth Travis, on a temporary gig as a teacher.
That sounds like the vignette to feature Kristen Stewart, except for the female class auditor – which could well be a reporting or publicity error. Or perhaps there will be a gender switch in the movie adaptation, with the cowboy turned into a cowgirl.
“Travis, B.” was published in The New Yorker in 2002.
The 2009 Maile Meloy short-story compilation Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which may be the basis for Kelly Reichardt’s film project, features “Travis, B.”
Kristen Stewart Clouds of Sils Maria image: IFC Films.
Image of Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in Adventureland: Miramax Films.