Kristen Stewart is opening up about her iconic film roles. ET's Matt Cohen spoke with the 31-year-old actress as she's being honored by the Palm Springs International Film Awards with the Spotlight Award for her performance as the late Princess Diana in Spencer, and she also talked about the Twilight franchise getting a new fan base thanks to the films streaming on Netflix.
Stewart played main character Bella Swan in the films adapted from Stephenie Meyer's best-selling books, a human who falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Stewart talked to ET about the films getting a new life with a younger audience, for example, singer Olivia Rodrigo, who recently showed off her Breaking Dawn bracelet on Instagram. Stewart shared that she didn't even know the films were on Netflix until she chanced upon it while browsing the streaming service.
"I saw that it's on Netflix, and I was like, 'Oh, it's on Netflix,' like it was on there while I was looking through," she says. "Dude, it's weird because it feels incredibly far away and also still not that far away from me and my time in this film. I don't know, like, on one hand you're like, 'Oh, I'm old, my God, I did this five minutes ago, now it's like 10-year anniversary.' I'm like, wow, I have to go to my high school anniversary already."
"It's rad, I don't know, I haven't really ... that hasn't touched me yet," she continues. "I can't wait for someone who's 12 or 15 to suddenly think, like, it's like when you're little and you tell your parents how great Jimi Hendrix is or something -- not to say that I'm remotely comparing my life to Jimi Hendrix -- but you know what I mean where they're like, 'Dude, you don't even know, it's like, so sick.' I do, I was in that."
Meanwhile, when it comes to playing the real-life icon Princess Diana, the experience definitely had a profound effect on her.
"The most resounding takeaway that I have from making this movie was probably how big and how small I felt as her," she says. "I've never felt so big and so small at the same time. And I don't know, just to sort of be aware of there are certain impactful and, you know, touching people that exist and they're sort of lightning in a bottle, one-in-a-million special, but their inner lives are maybe not sometimes what it feels like for everyone outside, do you know what I mean? You know, it's like this woman was able to reach out and touch so many people and responsible for so much good in the world, a just sort of unyielding, unbelievable amount of goodness, but at the same time it's just really nice to, you know, to fall into sort of wake of her dreamy nature."
"[It's] such a trip and I've never done anything like it and I love work," she continues. "I think of her as a sort of artist. She was so good at touching those outside of herself. That is a certain talent and connection and that's what we're doing and I think all of that was just the coolest thing."
Aside from racking up critical acclaim for her performance in Spencer -- which is available to buy or rent on digital and on demand -- Stewart has plenty going on in her personal life as well, including planning a wedding to fiancé Dylan Meyer. The couple got engaged in November after two years of dating. When it comes to what she'll be wearing to tie the knot, she said she was keeping it a surprise.
"You're supposed to, I mean, I guess traditionally speaking and in this case, I mean, who knows how many ... I don't even know detail-wise, I don't know how many traditions we're going to follow," she shares. "But I know what I’m gonna wear, and I can't tell you. Like, the whole thing, we kind of have to do the surprise thing."
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