Kristen Stewart Has Had It With He-Man Method Acting

A New York Times interview with Kristen Stewart has gotten some buzz over a tangent about Marlon Brando and Hollywood masculinity. Interviewer David Marchese brought up the famous actor, noting how he famously mispronounced "krypton" in Superman. As legend has it, he did so deliberately, as a way to retain integrity despite appearing in a popcorn movie. The anecdote had Stewart scoffing:

• "Brando sounds like a hero, doesn't he? If a woman did that, it would be different," she said.
• "Performance is inherently vulnerable and therefore quite embarrassing and unmasculine. There's no bravado in suggesting that you're a mouthpiece for someone else's ideas. It's inherently submissive. Have you ever heard of a female actor that was method?"

• Men "are aggrandized for retaining self," and women don't get the same treatment, she argued. "There's a common act that happens before the acting happens on set: If they can protrude out of the vulnerability and feel like a gorilla pounding their chest before they cry on camera, it's a little less embarrassing."
• Stewart is promoting her first film as director, The Chronology of Water. Last month, she publicly criticized Hollywood's "backsliding" on authentic stories by and about women.