Title: Kristen Stewart Thinks Hollywood Is Stuck in ‘Capitalist Hell’ | The Interview

Date of Upload: December 6, 2025
Platform: YouTube
Hosts: David Marchese and Lulu Garcia-Navarro

A black‑and‑white photograph of actress Kristen Stewart lying on a textured ground scattered with small white fragments. She wears a white bralette, black pants, and an open black jacket. Her body is angled diagonally across the frame, and the high‑contrast lighting emphasizes the textures of the surface, her clothing, and her pose, creating a moody, cinematic atmosphere.

Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

I found time to listen to the The New York Times podcast "The Interview," which I consider to be an obnoxious title for a podcast that only The New York Times could think to pull off without a sense of shameless irony. It was with Kristen Stewart, an actress I have admired since Twilight, and to this day, and I say this with confidence, she was perfect. There was not, and is still not, an actress in Hollywood who could play Bella Swan to that degree of accuracy. She was perfect, and I have re-watched the series in its entirety enough times to say: there is no other.

A monochrome portrait of Kristen Stewart standing indoors in front of softly draped curtains. She wears a sleeveless Chanel dress with intricate floral embroidery and a bow‑shaped choker. Her short, styled hair and the gentle lighting highlight her facial features and the detailed textures of the outfit, giving an elegant, intimate tone.

source. Vogue, Virgile Guinard / Courtesy of Chanel 

She has maintained a tasteful celebrity status, and her Chanel looks are to die for. A woman queering in the public eye is no easy thing to be, or for the liberal media to properly stomach. But in this interview she sits down with co-host David Marchese to discuss her first directorial feature, “The Chronology of Water,” an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name, a movie I have not yet seen. Not a problem though, as the interview is mainly a discussion about a woman and her industry, her job, her life, her thoughts, and, as you will hear from Kristen in reference to the 8‑year wait to make this movie, it is important because "it’s about saying things."

As for the movie, she also states: "it’s like, anytime you start talking about yourself, it becomes this tired, pathetic, messy thing. And I wanted to make something tired, pathetic and messy that also felt exuberant and encouraging."

The official poster for movie, The Chronology of Water shows lead actress Imogen Poots in a red swimsuit leaning back with their head tilted upward against a backdrop of blue sky and water. The upper portion of the poster is solid red, and the title appears in bold yellow capital letters across the center. The composition uses vivid color contrasts and a fluid, expressive pose that evokes themes of water, memory, and emotional intensity.
A behind‑the‑scenes image from The Chronology of Water shows director Kristen Stewart speaking with Imogen Poots, who portrays Lidia Yuknavitch in the film. Stewart wears a white cropped T‑shirt, black pants, and headphones, suggesting her role in directing or sound monitoring. Poots left heel is propped on a stool wearing a striped swimsuit with black, white, and red horizontal lines. Professional lighting equipment stands behind them, and the tiled blue wall hints at an indoor pool or aquatic filming environment. The moment captures an exchange between Kristen and the lead actress during production.

source. IMDb, Variety/Andrejs Strokins (left-right)

David is great in this interview. I enjoy this interview style; it is a break from the glut of podcasts these days that I describe as going live with your friends. Everyone is a friend in these shows and I am bored. All that tiptoeing and nothing saying and laughing and more nothing saying. Bring me an interview. Bring me risk. And David asks, "I wonder if you can make that concrete a little."

I love this little add-on in David's question. Art people talk like art people, and when talking to art people you let them talk like art people mostly because you don’t know how to make them stop, but also because you get insecure about sounding like you don’t get what you are supposed to get. And if you don’t get art, well then people start thinking you don’t get anything. Asking a celebrity to make the poetic formal is a bold move for an interviewer, something I wish more interviews with creatives had. Kristen's explanation afterwards is rewarding though. She gets art properly, and understands her work and creation with the sense of a journeyman.

At 6:27 she says, "I’m a morning person." Later she appends this brilliant line about her movie: "there’s a sexuality in it that feels delicious."

Within the compulsory inclusion of "what is it like to be a celebrity and witness how everyone talks about you,” some great nuggets emerge. I will sincerely, lol, always want to make that Love Island joke.

Kristen: "I don’t fixate on how things are going to land on other people, because I’m not smart enough." A case for failing in public then? How terrifying.

David: At some point, you became a character in the tabloids, and I was curious about what you learned from seeing this character, Kristen Stewart, out in the world, and you know it’s not you.

Kristen: But sometimes it is.

Oh God, this has to be one of my favourite responses to this question type I have ever heard. Finally we are being honest. Yes, celebrity personas are thin accounts of their human experience, but there has to be at some point a little of themselves there. The speculation as to how much is useless, but the acknowledgement of the reality that they got you right, they get you right sometimes, and I wonder what that feels like for them. Even with the people I meet, they are here today and gone tomorrow, and most of that is the biological makeup of my brain, but my memory can’t be all wrong. And in the moments when the ephemeral is no longer and we catch a glimpse of that static invention of who we are, that is exhilarating. So yes, "sometimes it is."

David: I said that like I know you. I don’t know you. Maybe it was you.

Kristen: You do know me now, and that belongs to you.

Now it does. It is the place we share together; now you know this me. In my understanding, which is limited to less than 3 decades, the cross-linking of information or person-hood and personality ownership is prosaic and meaningless. They get what they want, and what they believe and think is just as much their right to own as the version of yourself you continue to mutate. With you I am me, and through you I become me.

A black‑and‑white photograph of Kristen Stewart standing on a balcony overlooking calm water at the fourth annual Biarritz Film Festival‑Nouvelles Vagues in France. She wears a Chanel Resort 2027 black outfit with bold red, white, and beige striped accents along the neckline, sleeves, and hem, cinched with a black belt featuring a gold Chanel logo buckle. Her short, wet‑styled hair frames her face as she leans casually against the railing, creating a relaxed, coastal portrait with a polished, editorial feel.

source. Reddit r/whatthefrock

Some more great quotes:

  1. 1.

    Kristen:"I don’t want to not get invited to the party, but then you go to the party and you’re like, this party sucks."

  2. 2.

    Kristen: "Having it be so impossible for people to tell stories is capitalist hell, and it hates women and marginalized voices, and it’s racist."

  3. 3.

    Kristen: "You plateau into contentment after a lot of false victories and false starts, and then you achieve something that feels self-earned, even if accompanied."

This is a podcast in The Cyber Harvest 0.01. Check out the page on my site, Plush Diagnosis.

To all the angels,

Plush 💋

The Cyber Harvest 0.01

The Cyber Harvest series is something I started as part of my take on personal curriculum and media gardens. It's a project born from my own approach to building a personal learning ecosystem, a mix of self‑directed study, aesthetic cultivation, and media organization.

The Cyber Harvest 0.01
Plush Diagnosis
August 03, 2026