By Scott W. Perry
In the past decade, Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart grew up before our eyes on screen to become the most successful child stars of the decade. Now grown up, Fanning, 16, and Stewart, 19, enter the new decade with their most challenging and ambitious work yet in capturing the essence of the two main members of The Runaways, Cherrie Curie and Joan Jett respectively.
For Fanning, being the same age as Cherrie Curie was during the height of The Runaways success was beneficial to truly portray the accuracy on screen, and Fanning portrays the transition from innocent David Bowie fan to an out of control rock star with strong conviction...
Kristen Stewart, having already achieved major stardom with her starring role in the Twilight movies, truly captured Joan Jett as she began her path to rock immortality, from her singing voice to her mannerisms on stage, Stewart fully embodies Jett’s body and soul.
Although the two had met and worked together on Twilight: New Moon, it was during the making of The Runaways where both Stewart and Fanning worked closely together to truly capture Floria Sigismondi’s film of one of the most overlooked and vital rock bands to come out of rock n roll history.
The two actors paired up again to take part in a press day to talk to reporters and journalists about bringing to life the wild times of 1975 Los Angeles and the challenges and triumphs of making The Runaways. Stewart still looks as if embodied by Jett as she rushes in after doing the morning rounds of television, wearing a black ensemble reminiscent of Jett’s style but still making it all her own.
Fanning is the opposite, with her white shirt matching her blonde hair and confident smile. She immediately reflects on the challenges of playing Cherrie Curie, and what the experience taught her in understanding what a rock band goes through in preparation of launching a music career.
“I think that my first taste of it was just being thrown into the recording studio to sing the songs, says Dakota. “I haven’t re-recorded them to this day. Those are what they are and how they will be in the movie and what’s on the soundtrack. Just being in a recording studio, realizing that it was what I was going to do today was surprising but it was also how The Runaways did it back then and that was cool, they only did one or two takes and that was it.”
Kristen already played guitar before signing on to play Jett, but even then she found the experience both challenging and rewarding. “It’s definitely gotten me playing more guitar,” Stewart says but regarding her own style, she wryly says “I have to say when I play music it’s nothing like the way Joan plays. She’s a rhythm guitar player and I’m just a little weird, picky, manic player. I play so different than her. I was really lucky that I could play guitar because I had such a small period of time to learn the songs and stuff and Joan has a very distinct way that she plays. Luckily I didn’t have to worry about getting the sound right because when you hear me play guitar in the film, it’s actually Joan playing. I had to learn the songs so I could look like I could play it.”
There was one aspect of Joan Jett that Kristen did find a little terrifying at first. “My performance was the most intimidating thing because they have very distinct styles, especially in Joan. Joan is very specific in performing. I’m not a performer at all so that was a new thing for me. When I first started watching Joan perform these songs, she was so full of something that I felt that nobody could ever try to emulate. That’s unique to her. Nobody else has what she has. When she looks into the crowd, there are certain videos where you get lucky and there’s a good shot of her where you see her stare into the camera. I felt initially I could never do that. That was the hugest thing for me because with Joan, it was all about the music. Even if the movie’s storyline fell completely short and she was disappointed by it, if the music was great she would be happy that people would listen to the music, but it was very important to capture that.”
Getting the musicians in Joan and Cherrie were important for both Dakota and Kristen to emulate and capture flawlessly, but how was the process in capturing their personal, private personas as well and in what way did Joan and Cherrie help them?
Dakota says, “I think that they were really involved in helping us as much as we wanted them to help us. To be there and play a real person is a daunting task, especially with Cherrie actually being there. Meeting her and talking to her about these experiences were more than helpful I think.”
“Because there were things that we would never know,” Kristen adds. “Things that we wouldn’t be able to put in the movie that would be lost that would be very important to them, just details, photos and footage and of course Cherrie’s book which is a subjective telling of one side of the story. Her book is definitely her side of it. It was nice to hear Joan’s perspective of it. There’s a million things that we could’ve done in the movie and most of them would’ve been wrong had they not have been there to correct us.”
Dakota did reflect on the different styles of Cherrie not only emotionally, but physically as well. “Physically, I was definitely looking at the way Cherrie was because onstage and offstage she was very different. I wanted to make sure that there was a difference between the two. Onstage she emulated David Bowie, was bigger than life, and had so much confidence but in real life she’s very vulnerable and had an innocence about her.” Dakota also feels that playing Cherrie has done more than just play a role. “I still see Cherrie a lot. She has such a big personality and I don’t think but help to think that with so many things going on in my life, I go back to them and relate to them because it is such an important experience for me. Sometimes I think I’m still doing the movie and I’m playing her,” she concludes with laughter.
In playing characters born before their time, and in having to dress in the style of the 1970s, did Dakota and Kristen have a fondness for the clothes they were wearing?
Dakota laughs, “I have most of my wardrobe from the film. I have the corset. I love the silver jumpsuit and the corset because they were so iconic to Cherrie. Those were the most important pieces for me.”
Kristen adds with a smile, “I think it’s weird saying that we took it. They gave it to us.” She then seriously recalls what she did with one iconic piece of clothing when filming was done.
“I took the leather jacket I wore and I wrote a message to Joan on the back out in with a small, white out pen so it looks really punk rock. I gave the jacket to Joan. It’s really cool.” After pondering the jacket for a few moments, Kristen then comes to a realization. “Now that I think of it, I should’ve taken the other jacket I wore as well.”
Kristen recalled how her intensity in playing Joan led to an uncomfortable moment at one of the industry’s biggest events of 2009. “I remember I had to do a lot of press at Comic-Con right in the middle of shooting and I was no not ready for that. I was in a completely different headspace and I think it definitely showed.” Kristen received a lot of attention for her appearance at Comic-Con, being such a stark contrast to her character in the Twilight movies (Kristen was promoting Twilight: New Moon at the event).
The Runaways is not the first film both Dakota and Kristen have worked on together, with them wrapping up Twilight: New Moon before shooting The Runaways. The two definitely share a friendship which was never shown better when after being asked about the bond they shared during filming, Kristen looked at Dakota with a diva like stare and said “I think you just spit on me a little bit.”
The two did say that capturing the friendship between Cherrie and Joan not only strengthened their own friendship, but also drew them closer to the real life people they were portraying. Says Dakota, “I think that Kristen, Joan, Cherrie, and myself have something that not a lot of people will truly understand because of the experience that we had on the sets.”
Kristen does make one strong comment about her friendship with Dakota and what they share most in common. “We both really love what we do as actresses. There’s not a lot of young actors that we talk to that are into it as we are. I just think she’s really cool.”
With the rabid fan base that the Twilight movies has generated, has their status as icons from this franchise helped them in performing their concert scenes in The Runaways? Both Dakota and Kristen don’t think so.
“I think it’s hard comparing an actor with someone who’s in music especially with me playing just a musician,” says Dakota. “It’s a different energy than you feel in having someone scream and cheer for you personally. With actors, most of the time people are fans of who you’ve played and they only see you as that character as opposed to a musician in that they love you, who you are on stage, and how you propose yourself to an audience.”
Kristen adds, “Musicians make statements. They’re an entity into themselves and that’s not the way we are. They are more public figures than actors for reasons Dakota already explained.”
When mentioning the support of fans, Dakota does add, “I mean you have to have your fans to support your films and it’s so wonderful when someone is moved or inspired by something that you do and that’s why I do what I do. If you can help someone out there and they became a fan of you, I think that’s amazing.”
Kristen offers the same opinion. “To share what you love to other people, there’s nothing more gratifying. It’s weird when people come up to me and say that they saw this random movie that in my head I’m thinking nobody saw it. It’s a really cool feeling. I like it.”
What do both Dakota and Kristen think about both Cherrie and Joan’s status as rock icons and as women in general?
Kristen says fondly about Joan: “Well Joan was the first woman to start her own record label. She was told after The Runaways broke up and after a successful, extravagant time after a couple of years at such a young that she done and she had peaked. Despite that success, people still didn’t like her style. They felt she wasn’t girly enough. She’s not just a famous musician because she makes cool music. She makes really great music and it’s filled of her. She says that if you want to know her, read her lyrics and listen to the notes she’s playing. She really made some headway in this industry and people should know where she came from. That’s why The Runaways are so cool because I didn’t even know about The Runaways until I heard about this movie.”
Dakota speaks of Cherrie with an equal amount of respect and fondness: “For Cherrie I think what I took away a lot from her was the sacrifice that she makes and to give up what she loved to do because she even says it today that she would have died if she continued the path she was on. To watch someone give that sacrifice and I looked at myself and wondered if I could give it up like she did but I am not on the same downward spiral that she was, but that’s a really hard thing to watch and see the person you were closest to become Joan Jett and to have zero resentment and be proud of what Joan has done to me was such an amazing thing to watch in Cherrie so she was pretty inspiring to me.”
With The Runaways set to be released in theaters, both actors hope the film carries on an important message to fans their age.
“I don’t think a lot of girls my age know who The Runaways are,” says Dakota. “I don’t think a lot of people know Cherrie Curie’s story so it’s great to bring this story and music to people of my generation.”
Kristen agrees. “It’s nice to deliver this story to people who don’t know about it. I think it’s good to know where we came from because Dakota and I have grown up in a different way. I never thought for one second that I couldn’t do or say something or look a certain way. That’s not how I was raised and it was a different way for them.
Kristen has a final message about the importance of the music in the movie as well. “Also Joan’s really excited as we all are about the music,” Kristen says. “People have been really inspired by the music a little bit. I’ve had a lot of friends tell me ‘Oh you’re in a band now’ and we’ve experienced that as much as one possibly can but it’s awesome because you do see girls playing music but nobody really is aggressive with it. None of it is aggressive. It would be really awesome if more women played as aggressive as they did in the 1970s.”
The Runways opens in limited release on March 19th 2010 and in wide release on April 9th.
(Special thanks to Betsy Rudnick and Brian Clark at Falco Ink)
