Kristen Stewart ‘would do’ a Marvel film – if one high-profile director joins her

Kristen Stewart has spoken about her relucatance to star in a superhero movie, but said she “would do it” with the involvement of Hollywood’s highest-profile female director.

The Twilight star, 33, has largely avoided blockbuster projects since finding fame as Bella Swan in the hit teen fantasy adaptations of Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling books. Now renowned as a darling of independent cinema, Stewart can most recently be seen in the queer noir drama Love Lies Bleeding.

Speaking to Amanda Hirsch on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, Stewart said that making a superhero film “sounds like a f***ing nightmare, actually”.

She admitted, however, that she “like[s] big movies because I like people to watch them when I’m in them”.

Hirsch suggested that Stewart would make a good fit for the role of Mary-Jane Watson in an adaptation of the Marvel comic Spider-Man. The part has previously been played by actors including Kirsten Dunst and Zendaya.

Stewart went on to explain that the “system would have to change” if she were ever to sign on to a superhero film.

“You would have to put so much money and so much trust into one person... and it doesn’t happen,” she said. “And so therefore what ends up happening is this algorithmic, weird experience where you can’t feel personal at all about it.”

“But maybe the world changes,” she added, stipulating that she “would do” a Marvel movie if the film were directed by Greta Gerwig, the acclaimed director of Little Women and last year’s box office smash Barbie.

Gerwig is currently set to direct an adaptation of CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Ray Winstone is among the actors to have complained about the experience of filming a Marvel movie, telling Radio Times that the process was “soul-destroying”.

Elsewhere in the podcast interview, Stewart discussed her character’s arc on Twilight, claiming that she would have rooted for Bella to break up with her vampiric love interest Edward (Robert Pattinson).

“Yeah, he was trying to sort of control whether or not she made choices for herself. I would’ve broken up with him immediately,” Stewart said.

Referring to Edward’s initial unwillingness to turn Bella into a vampire in the later novels, Stewart added: “I mean if I was like, ‘Hey, I want to try that,’ and he was like, ‘No, this is just for me,’ I would be like, ‘Well, this is also just for me. My whole life. Without you.’”