Kristen Stewart Says Ambiguity Is Her Favorite Thing Ever, Especially Sexual Ambiguity

Kristen Stewart isn’t into labels. That’s one of the reasons she was inspired to make her directorial debut with The Chronology of Water, a memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch that explores the author’s experiences with both men and women, as well as grief and addiction. While talking about the film in a new interview with Mastermind, Stewart elaborated on her disdain for putting things into boxes.

“Ambiguity is my favorite thing ever. In terms of sexuality? For sure,” Stewart said. “And also in making films, if you perfectly answer every question, you don’t allow for people to have their own experience and really indulge a thought. I feel the same way about how we fuck each other. You don’t want to know everything all the time.”

She will be bringing that same approach to her adaptation of the beloved book, which tells a story in terms not usually seen on the big screen. “Right now, I’m so aware of the fact that we’ve watched, cinematically, men and their way into their bodies and do physical things that feel fundamental to this male perspective,” Stewart said. “In every coming of age story we see about a young girl, even if it’s the truest, most sincere thing, what’s lacking is the physical honesty of actual female experience and the way we discover our bodies. It’s like we’re scared of using certain words.”

She gave an example of one incident of this, saying, “My favorite line in this movie I’m currently writing is, ‘I thought about Sienna Torres and her shoving her hand into my wide-open c-nt about as wide as a mouth saying motherf-cker.’ That’s not something people would be comfortable hearing, up until right now, but I think it’s the perfect time. There’s nothing dirty about it, but I’m definitely going to be vulgar, and I’m definitely going to be completely unabashedly open about the fact that we’re entirely sexual beings.”

Kristen Stewart gave a similar summation of her own sexuality back in 2016 when she was forced into doing so. When asked by Variety to clarify it, she said, “Me not defining it right now is the whole basis of what I’m about. If you don’t get it, I don’t have time for you.”