Some Kind of Wonderful

The other excitement of my recent Cake Eaters junket was interviewing Mary Stuart Masterson, who directed the movie. Like many people of my age, Some Kind of Wonderful was a seminal movie during my upbringing. I resisted the urge, however, to ask her how enjoyable it was on a scale of 1-10 to make out with Eric Stoltz.

Mary Stuart Masterson was, in person, a little more feminine than I think you'd expect--if by feminine you mean she was wearing a flowy flowery bohemian type shirt and some dangly jewelry, which I do. She basically looked exactly like she used to (hair a little longer than, you know, when she was a tomboy drummer), but slightly older. Mostly she's aging very very well. Also, unlike people who put their middle name or whatever into their stage name for SAG purposes (this means you, Philip Seymour Hoffman), MSM officially goes by Mary Stuart. Fascinating.

The most exciting part of the interview for me was when someone brought up the fact that the movie dealt with an older 20-something guy dating a high school age girl. I informed the table that my husband had referred to it as 'The best movie about statutory rape he'd ever seen," and was rewarded with a huge laugh. The writer (who was on the phone for the interview) suggested they put that on the poster. Ah, Mary Stuart Masterson thinks I am hilarious.

The Twilight of my life

Last week I did a junket for a little indie called The Cake Eaters, which featured a relatively unknown actress at the time it shot--Kristen Stewart, now of Twilight superstardom. 

The illustrious Ms. Stewart (better known to psychotic Twihards as Bella Swan) had never particularly impressed me. I'd seen her in a couple of things and she'd seemed to have a rather harsh quality to her. Plus, she's gotten a shit-ton of negative press over a less than grateful/gushing attitude about Twilight and its ravenous fans.

So, in short, I fully expected her to be a bitch. I am pleased (for her) to announce that she was not. She wasn't bursting with Disney goodness and offering to bake us cookies or anything--far from it. She was smart, intense, and a little nervous--saying that she'd heard us all laughing before she came in when we were doing the previous round of interviews and was worrying that they'd be a tough act to follow (and she seemed to actually mean it). She was clearly physically tense--kind of caved in on herself, and shaking her leg the whole time.

BUT, and this is a big but, she actually laughed once or twice and when we asked a couple of obligatory Twilight questions she didn't tell us into which orifice we could shove them. That is what surprised me. She was actually, weirdly, almost better able to answer those questions than the ones about the movie she just did because she's obviously a little humble about her work and doesn't like to sit there and be like, 'Oh I am so amazing, yes I am very talented,' which is also nice.

Her costar, btw, Aaron Stanford, whom I hadn't really seen before (evidently he was Pyro in X-Men, amongst other things) was a really easy going and funny, nice guy. She obviously was very comfortable with him, and I think he went a bit of a way to chill her out.

I guess the bottom line is this: Kristen Stewart is a bit of a serious, intense, Daria type.She can come across as a little prickly or defensive, but I got the impression that there was the hope that that covered a thoughtful person instead of a self-important bitch. After all, she is just a 19-year-old dealing with insane fan and press attention, and that is enough to scare the bajeesus out of anyone. But in person, at least when I met her, she may not have been a teddy bear, but it wasn't the diva-tude I expected. Two points for Missy K.