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Kristen Stewart says studio notes on Happiest Season felt like 'identity was being squashed'
The Love Lies Bleeding star opens up to Out about one of the most annoying parts of making Happiest Season.
Kristen Stewart’s latest queer movie is, in many ways, a polar opposite to her last one.
The queer star is currently appearing in Love Lies Bleeding, a dark, visceral, sexy, and bloody ’80s-set thriller where she plays a lesbian gym manager who falls for a female bodybuilder.
The last time she played a leading lesbian role before this was in the 2020 Christmas rom-com Happiest Season.
The two movies couldn’t be more different.
While in Happiest Season, the main couple, Abby (Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) try to hide their relationship to make Harper’s family more comfortable, in Love Lies Bleeding, the couple do nothing to try to fit in with “normal” society.
“I think it was a delight to ‘hide the vegetables,’ so to speak, in Happiest Season, and do something mainstream and jolly and digestible and ultimately, nutritious,” Stewart tells Out. “But I will say that all of the notes, like the studio notes, that trickled down, I couldn't get away from the visceral feeling of identity being squashed, even though we were trying to provide a service that wasn't truly understood by the powers that be that facilitated its existence.”
“It was like this fucking annoying experience from the inside,” she continues. “And I loved working with Clea [DuVall, the film’s writer and director]. Mackenzie's my favorite actor, I loved the script, I loved the movie. It was just to do it in that format is why I really commend Clea, because I don't have the patience for that.”
After Happiest Season, many queer viewers were furious with Harper for making Abby hide her queerness, and wanted the two characters to break up. With Love Lies Bleeding, the characters are much, much more toxic, and so is the relationship, but we can’t help but root for Lou and Jackie to make it, even as they delve deeper into the pits of hell.
Love Lies Bleeding is now playing in select theaters and is set for wide release on March 15.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
