Kristen Stewart is an American actress, filmmaker, and model who became a global name as Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga and later earned serious awards attention for independent and biographical roles. Born Kristen Jaymes Stewart on April 9, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, she grew up in a film-industry household and began working as a child. Her first major notice came at age 12 in David Fincher’s thriller Panic Room, playing the daughter of Jodie Foster’s character. She followed that with Speak, the wilderness drama Into the Wild, and the coming-of-age comedy Adventureland. International stardom arrived with Twilight in 2008 and the four sequels that completed the saga, a franchise that grossed more than $3 billion worldwide and, at its peak, made her one of the highest-paid actresses in the world. Those films brought a BAFTA Rising Star Award along with multiple MTV Movie Awards, People’s Choice Awards, and Teen Choice Awards. In the same era she headlined the fantasy blockbuster Snow White and the Huntsman and portrayed rock musician Joan Jett in The Runaways. After the franchise years she rebuilt her reputation in smaller, critic-facing films, winning the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria, the first American actress to receive that French honor. She reteamed with Assayas on the Paris thriller Personal Shopper and continued with Camp X-Ray, Certain Women, Still Alice, and the biopic Seberg.
Stewart’s most high-profile dramatic performance was Diana, Princess of Wales in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, which earned Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics Choice nominations for Best Actress. Other widely seen credits include Charlie’s Angels, the holiday romance Happiest Season, and the crime romance Love Lies Bleeding. She has also directed short films and taken on producing and feature-directing work. Off screen she has been closely tied to Chanel as a fashion ambassador and has used her platform for LGBTQ rights and environmental protection, along with charity support for disaster relief and education. She has generally kept romantic relationships out of the center of her public story. Fans and photographers still fix on the look that made her famous: a slightly crooked, camera-ready smile, heavy-lidded light-hazel eyes, tousled dirty-blonde or brunette hair, and a lean 5’5″ frame that reads both tomboy and high fashion. Whether she is in a structured Chanel gown, leather jacket, or simple tee, that mix of cute and seductive has kept her one of the most recognizable faces in modern Hollywood.