What is “real”?” It’s a question many of us have certainly asked ourselves, maybe while daydreaming. How do we define reality? Are our personalities formed organically from ourselves? Or are they a simulacrum of our experiences, our environments? How can we expect someone to love us if we cannot find the truth about our own personhood? These are the heady questions the new romance “Love Me” explores. It would be easy to call “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, a rom-com.
It is very funny, but if you’re walking in for an easy date night romp between two of our great living actors, be prepared to spend time parsing out the Big Questions. This isn’t your typical girl-meets-guy, and they fall in love. Oh no. “Love Me” finds Kristen Stewart’s buoy and Steven Yeun’s satellite having their meet-cute at the end of the world.
The buoy, “Me,” as she calls herself, gains sentience after a quick internet scan. Desperately seeking connection, she lies to the satellite (“Iam”) that’s been left behind to scan for lifeforms on a dead Earth and says she’s a living being. As the two strike up a friendship and then a relationship inside a nebulous virtual space created by Me mapping their personalities onto a long-dead influencer (Deja) and her husband (Liam), those Big Questions begin to surface. Is Me really her own “being?” Or is she simply a construct destined to exist solely as a replication? Where does the truth of Me begin and the fallacy of Deja end? Is what they’re experiencing truly love? Or is it something Me’s created and forced Iam to adhere to?
Husband and wife directing duo Andrew and Sam Zuchero’s feature debut finds a lovely balance between existential head-trip and delightfully charming. As much as it forces you to ask yourself how we create, well, Us, it’s also a lovely two-hander full of big laughs and an even bigger heart. Who better to explore that than Kristen Stewart? Stewart, an actress who finds worlds of truth in every role she attacks, is perfect for sinking into something so head-spinning. Whether it’s giving a best-of-its-decade performance in something like “Personal Shopper” or getting down and dirty with some action-horror in the very underrated “Underwater,” Stewart brings a kind of lived-in depth to her work that you rarely find with most mega-famous stars. She can play a world of emotion in one glance, she can hold her own with screwball-comedy patter and is always so in control of her craft in ways that feel uninhibited.
Stewart has a way about her where she often seems to be searching for the right thing to say within her performances; she accesses this interiority in even her most out-there roles. Here, as a water buoy grasping for humanity, she’s spectacular. Every pause while Me tries to understand her place in all of this, every manic burst of energy as she discovers a new aspect to “living,” it’s all so considered while never once losing sight of the truth.
What is truth, then? Authenticity? To find out, Brandon Streussnig sat down with Kristen Stewart for a brief chat about what it means to be “Real” when the word of our moment constantly circles back to “Fake.”
Your work often finds such authenticity in every role you take on. What are the challenges of playing something so inauthentic, even beyond the robots and into the performance of influencer culture? How do you approach that kind of artifice?
I mean, artifice can be more revealing than when somebody is, you know, under the sort of impression that they are trying to express a truth. I think there is something inherently difficult about that. That’s why we have art. It’s tough to identify what the truth is. It’s such a transient thing. It’s not black and white. And I feel like when we were doing some of the more seemingly inauthentic stuff, we were stepping away from any scathing perspective. Because I think “fake” is… bad.
Like our culture, our experience is really inundated by this question of authenticity. And it’s the worst fucking thing. If you were like, “Hey, you’re fake,” I would be like, “Hey, fuck you.” (laughs) Like that’s the worst thing you can call someone is that you’re fake, lying, or falsely representing. When we were doing the Deja/Liam stuff, I stepped more into really liking her. Thinking of this kind of unaware, almost naive desire to help people believe in themselves, it felt like she was screaming into a void and self-defining.
When I say she, I know it’s a little silly. We’re talking about a person that we made up. (laughs) But I could tell that specifically about just scrolling the internet.; I don’t know that you can ever really be… not real. There’s a reality to everything.
To that point, how do you find the freedom to search for that kind of authenticity on screen, whether it’s a performance like this or anything else?
Usually, it’s filmmakers with whom you surround yourself. It should feel like an invitation, like a possibility. Being “allowed” is a generous gift; not everyone is good at giving it. I think I’ve gotten good at identifying when that’s there. I really just loved Sam and Andy [Zuchero] upon meeting them and reading their diving board of a script, which I thought was bold because it’s not proclaiming to know tons. It’s just- like I said, it felt like an invitation.
And Steven [Yeun], too. If you’re working with the right people, that person is a trooper. He will go anywhere with you, and I also feel like I want to keep up with him. Yeah, I think when you find yourself on set, and you’re locked in or something, like locked in your body, not feeling ready to sort of crack- oh, it’s the worst thing ever. You’re like, oh no, fuck, what am I doing here? (laughs) But yeah, I will say I’ve been fortunate lately. I haven’t had that experience in a really long time. Yeah, the right people and “bedfellows,” and you’re good to go.
This might be my own galaxy-brain sort of thinking, but I think whether it’s “Personal Shopper,” which is personally my favorite movie ever made–
Oh my god.
Oh yeah, huge favorite (laughs). So whether it’s something like that, where it’s grief manifesting into ghosts, or “Love Lies Bleeding,” where love can manifest into genuine strength, or even here, in “Love Me,” where the love between Me and Iam manifests into genuine humanity, however, you want to define that, what draws you to these esoteric or existential ideas?
It’s cool if the general consensus is that it’s more fun. That it’s more fun to grapple with ideas than to be prescribed (sighs) capitalist nonsense (laughs). Things are fully driven by people just wanting to make fucking money. You know what I mean? That’s the difference. I’m drawn to things that feel curious and audacious, and I’m definitely drawn to filmmakers that are aware of where the fuck we’re at and the acknowledgment of that.
Hell yeah.
Oddly, I think “Personal Shopper” holds hands with this movie because, in the end, there’s this question of what is real and how experience and perception define that. And we are all fucking lonely and isolated in our bodies and our consciences. And I think there is something to the sort of spiritual, mystical element. I hadn’t thought about those two movies back to back. They’re so fucking different, obviously, but they ask similar questions. And they don’t prescribe that. They absolutely urge you to think for yourself. And that is not marketable. (laughs) That totally makes sense. People crave sturdy ideas. It feels good to know stuff, but it’s also just ridiculous.
You mentioned that the filmmakers gave you more freedom to explore. You’re working on your first feature as a director. Working behind so many talented filmmakers, I wonder how that prepared you to take that on with “The Chronology of Water”?
It’s so funny. On bad days or days where I feel lost or out of control or like I can’t wrangle a vibe, which is the job (laughs), I ultimately picture these people’s faces and hear their voices in my head. I literally hear and see Pablo [Larraín] tearing his fingers through his beard, saying, “Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together.” And I’m like- I have had the most spiritual experiences kick-started by people who can create an environment in which you are yourself and can sprawl, which is not easy to do.
It takes a magic person and somebody who is also sort of insane because to claim that you can do that is egomaniacal. There is something monstrous about being like, follow me. (laughs) But I’ve just seen it work out so often that I think it can be an actual, beautiful, generous act of love if it comes from the right place.
My favorite directors are people who feel like family to me now, like teachers and mentors, but not in a professional sense, in a life way, like how to live better. Yeah, like Olivier [Assayas] and Pablo, not just because they’re fancy directors. They’re the fancy directors because they are great. So I’m just trying to bring some fucking love (laughs) because then people feel like they can fuck up and try things and discover.
This is a personal question for me. I recently moved to New York, but I was a lifelong Pittsburgh native. You’ve worked a bit in Pittsburgh. “Adventureland” means a lot to me, and I loved how you guys highlighted Lawrenceville in “Happiest Season.” You can be completely honest because that city isn’t for everyone, but what were your experiences working in Pittsburgh?
I love Pittsburgh. You guys shred cheese and put it on pizza. (laughs) I loved our crews. I loved the people so much. I still text my driver, Don, from Pittsburgh. It’s such a warm city- well, it’s actually freezing. (laughs). It’s a little gritty, which I absolutely love. The vibes are good. I fucking love Pittsburgh. I love working there. Yeah, it’s rad.
It’s the early days, and I’m sure you can’t talk much about this. But I know you’ve been attached to the new Panos [Cosmatos] movie, “Flesh of the Gods.” Is there anything you’re able to say about that yet?
Oh man, I wish. We are going to make that movie. I think Panos has just done something else. It’s like we’re all waiting for the right moment. It’s an honest endeavor. It’s highly ambitious. I think he has been designing this movie for years. He’s probably still in the thick of that process now. I don’t know precisely when we will go, in full transparency, but it’s not falling by the wayside by any means. It’s just something that might take a second.
“Love Me” was released on January 31st, 2025 and is currently playing in theaters via Bleecker Street.
