3 questions with Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning

ShowBizCafe.com (SBC) had the opportunity to talk to Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning about their new film ‘The Runaways,” opening March 19, 2010. They let us in on how the music and the Rock icons Joan Jett and Cherie Currie influence them today:

SBC: You know what it feels like to have thousands of people screaming at you, due to your previous films, and now you are playing Rock musicians on stage. Although for a film, can you guys compare and contrast the energy that you get from fans in the two fields?

Dakota: I think it is hard comparing an actor with someone that is in music. I think it is really different, especially me just playing a musician. It is kind of a different energy that you feel than actually someone screaming for you or cheering for you personally. Also with actors, most of the time, those people are fans of whom you played and a character. They see you as that character, as appose to a musician they love YOU and who YOU are and how you project yourself onto other people; as appose to an actor, how you project your character onto other people.

Kristen: Musicians make statements. They are there to be themselves. That is just not who we are. I feel like they are much more public figures than actors almost because they are more like… she (Dakota) said it already.

SBC:How was the experience of working with Floria, and was their any real challenge to get it right for the real life people you were portraying?

Kristen: That was the whole thing. That is why the performances were the most intimidating thing, because they have very distinct styles. They’re performers and we’re… I am not a performer, so that was a new thing for me. When I first started watching Joan do these songs, she was SO full of something that I thought that I could never, that nobody could ever try to emulate because that is unique to her. Nobody else has that. When she looks into the crowd, and there are certain videos that you get lucky and there is a good shot of her because they are kind of rare, but she stares into that camera and you just think I am never going to be able to do that. So that was the hugest thing for us, because for Joan it is all about the music. Even if the movie’s story line completely fell short and people were disappointed by it, if the music was still good she would be good, people are listening.

SBC: Can you both talk about what makes them icons, beyond the obvious, what to you resonated of both characters, both people?

Kristen: Well Joan the first woman to start her own record label. She was basically told after The Runaways broke up, after such a successful extravagant, for a couple of years, time at such a young age, that she was done and that was it and she had peaked. Despite The Runaways success people still didn’t want to hear, people still didn’t like her style, people still thought she was too aggressive, and people didn’t wan to see that in a girl, she was ugly and she wasn’t girlie enough. She is not just a famous musician because she makes cool music, she makes really great music and it is filled with her. She is in her music; she says it all the time, if you want to know me read my lyrics. Or jus listen to the guitar she is playing. So what is cool is that it is not just because of that she made some headway and people should know where she came from; that is why The Runaways is so cool because I didn’t even know about The Runaways, I didn’t even know who they were.

Dakota: For Cherrie I think, what I took away, a lot form her was the sacrifice that she makes and to give up what she loves to do because she even says it today that she would have died, if she had continued on the path she was on. To watch someone give that sacrifice… I was looking at myself and I thinking to myself could I give that up myself and obviously I am not on a downward spiral like she was, but that is a really hard thing to do; and to watch the person that you are closest to become Joan Jett and to have zero resentment and to be so proud of Joan is such an amazing thing to watch in Cherrie; so she is pretty inspiring to me.