Kristen Jaymes Stewart (born April 9, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the films Panic Room, Catch That Kid, Speak, Zathura, The Messengers and the critically acclaimed Into the Wild. She is signed on to play Bella Swan in the film adaptation of Twilight.
Stewart was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Her father, John Stewart (not to be confused with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart), is a stage manager and television producer who worked for FOX. Her mother is a scriptwriter who comes from Australia. She has an older brother, Cameron. Stewart is an avid surfer and currently lives with her family in Los Angeles.
Stewart had a minor role in the 1999 made-for-television film The Thirteenth Year, and subsequently appeared in the independent film The Safety of Objects where she played the tomboy daughter of a troubled single mother (Patricia Clarkson). Stewart had a role in the major Hollywood film Panic Room, playing the sullen, diabetic daughter of a divorced mother (Jodie Foster). While the film received mixed reviews, Stewart garnered positive notices for the role.
After Panic Room's success, Stewart was cast in another thriller, Cold Creek Manor, playing the daughter of Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone's characters; the film generally failed at the box office. Her first starring role followed, in the children's action-comedy Catch That Kid, opposite Max Thieriot and Corbin Bleu. To date, Stewart’s most critically acclaimed role may be in the television film Speak (2004), based on the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. Stewart, thirteen at the time of filming, played high school freshman Melinda Sordino who stops almost all verbal contact after being raped and has to deal with enormous amounts of emotional turmoil. Stewart has received great praise for playing the character, who had only a few speaking lines, but kept up a dark witted commentary inside her head throughout the film.
Stewart appeared in the fantasy-adventure film Zathura, in In the Land of Women, a romantic drama starring Meg Ryan and Adam Brody, and in Academy Award winner Sean Penn's critically acclaimed film, Into the Wild. She will also co-star in The Cake Eaters and The Yellow Handkerchief, which was filmed in Louisiana. She is currently filming Adventureland in Pittsburgh, PA, Kennywood Park, and Latrobe, PA.
On November 16, 2007, Summit Entertainment announced that Stewart will play Bella Swan in the upcoming movie Twilight, based on Stephenie Meyer's bestselling vampire/human romance novel of the same name. She will star alongside Robert Pattinson, who will play Edward Cullen, her character's vampire boyfriend. The film began production in February of 2008 and has a release date of December 12, 2008.
