Kristen Stewart and Ji separation of self

[Celeste]

A few weeks ago I watched ten films that had KStew on them, and I know that sounds like a lot, but I've always said that if you want to judge an actor's ability at least watch that amount of their work.
This whole experience led me to notice something: while I watched her performances, there didn't seem to be any separation between her acting persona and her real self. What I mean by is that it's almost as if she's not "faking it," more like just living. Hair biting, stuttering and tons of awkwardness invade the screen whenever she appears; there's no pretension, no meticulousness she's her self, which to be honest, I much prefer that compared to the over the top method acting that is now days so often praised.
There's also a quote that she said and it encapsulates this notion wonderfully:
"Some people try to do that thing where you craft a character. I cannot be anyone other than who I am. If I can't empathize with something [my character] does, it's a problem. And sometimes I've had directors be like, It's not you, Kristen, it's the character. And I'm like, that's the laziest thing you can possibly say to me. It is me. It's definitely me."
So, my point with all of this is that I think her experience might be related to Ji and wherewith her identity; it's pretty much adhered in almost everything she does.
It doesn't mean that every Ji actors out here might have this exact problem, although it's not something that I ever see them complain about it.
PS: I almost forgot to include the report that I made of her since I was so caught up talking about something else, but anyways, here it is if anyone is interested:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hMSEFFS-oP4g087KsMP_Az4GknP8oLWG9MDJM4hIN9w/edit

[Rua]

Just checked this out, I thought that was a great report and an effective demonstration of her vultology as a TiSe II-- Directive 🙂
I haven't taken the time to watch nearly as many of her films as you have, so I won't make any comments on her ability as an actor, but I would like to comment on something that I think feeds into her complaint involving a director saying that, "It's not you, Kristen, it's the character." For me these sorts of conflicts are often very strongly tied to the writing, because what the actor has to empathize with and bring to life begins with the words on the page (for the vast majority of films). When you quoted Kristen at length above that did strike me as a very Ji-based statement, that she has to be able to see herself in complete alignment with the character; unfortunately bad writers often use characters in ways that will betray the character's own Ji to resolve a plot point (Jon Snow; Daenerys), and the actor is forced to reconcile this bad writing with their internal sense of the character while giving the best performance they can (which sounds like not much fun at all). In much of theater and script-based films, the character starts as words on the page, collections of thoughts and words and actions (funneled through the director's lens) that ends in the actor's living creation, or the embodiment of character that feels most true to the actor.
Post-script: This problem of the writing eroding the actor's affinity with a character I imagine would happen most often with long-term contracts where the actor reads the initial script(s) and the people involved and likes the project and signs on, and somewhere through the years the plot is lost, somewhere in the maze of writers and producers and directors changing hands, with budgets that increase each film or season and producers with myopic focus on short-term profit, the core of what the story is actually saying, the core of who the characters are is lost and it's just so much noise the actor is expected to ignore, and to simply perform what is written.

[Celeste]

Thank you, Rondo. I encourage you to do the same thing since it would be great to see more people joining in and doing reports.
Since you bring GoT to the table, I wanted to mention an Emilia Clarke interview where she describes the moment that she first read the script of season eight and discovered that Dany was going to burn down a city with innocent people. As can you imagine, just like us, she was consumed by the shock and decided to call her family asking questions like "why do you think about Daenerys?" or "do you think she's a good person?. All these questions were obviously due to the fact of the terrible writing that led her to question her own character's sanity, and credibility, which just thinking about it makes me extremely furious. I mean, how in the world do you screw a character's entire plot and storyline when as a screenwriter you've been dealing with them for ten years?! These people literally have brains for worms.
I also completely agree with your last paragraph, this is why I can't imagine why do MCU actors end up signing contracts for like 6 movies when they're pretty much going to do the same thing all over again (considering how little characterization do Marvel superheroes have).

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