"I have to be careful how to behave when I'm in the spotlight" she told me when I met her to talk about On The Road before the storm. "Apart from that, I'm more free than what people think. Also because I have nothing to be ashamed of."
Kristen is fierce. She wears short shorts, high heels and a t-shirt with Blondie licking a vinyl record. Her face is always serious, almost mopey, which contrasts with the still-teenager look. She enthusiastically talks about Walter Salles's movie based on the 1950s cult novel. "I couldn't wait to shoot it. It's...fucking important," she lets out. She plays Marylou, the young an uninhibited main character's wife. "She really lived, like the other characters that are based on writers," she explains."Luanne Henderson was married to Neal Cassidy, who's that hothead that's Dean Moriarty in the movie."
- Did you read Jack Kerouak's book?
"Yes, when I was 14 or 15, and it really stroke me. Those characters are the friends that I wish I'd had. They're absorbed in their emotions and in the desire of experience, like I am."
- Are you telling me you too feel a bit "Beat-y"?
"I mean, I do have that burning desire to experience, overcome limits and meet different people. It's necessary like air."
- Marylou was open for free love and not only...
"Go easy on similiarities. I'm really really different from her. I'm introvert, to beging with. And unlike me, she laughs openly. She offers herself completely, still without let guys use her. Sex and drugs were their way to seek themselves and explore the world."
- How did it feel to shoot scenes like the masturbation and the sex?
"What was transgressive in the 1950s isn't anymore nowadays. Besides, sex and nudity were such important elements of the story that I was ready to film them almost like they should have left an epoch-making mark in the history of the cinema...Jokes aside, the director perfectly recreated the atmosphere, so we got there naturally. Even if I didn't live it, I could feel the energy of that period: those guys were trying to squeeze their life until the last drop."
The rest of the transcript is under the cut :D