Kristen Stewart on Her Absurd Cannes Movie ‘Full Phil’ and Being ‘So Sick’ of the Studio System: ‘There Needs to Be Less Making Billionaires More F—ing Billionaires’

Kristen Stewart was ready to sign on to Quentin Dupieux’s “Full Phil” before she even read the script.

The Oscar-nominated actor and director had long been a fan of the French filmmaker — known for his absurd and surreal style — and was curious about his DIY approach, often shooting projects quickly and on a microbudget.

“I love his movies. They just don’t look or feel like anyone else’s, and those are the types of directors that actors are so lucky to be able to follow,” Stewart tells Variety from an airport lounge in the Canary Islands — where she’s currently shooting Panos Cosmatos’ vampire thriller “Flesh of the Gods” — before heading to Cannes for the “Full Phil” premiere. “He holds the camera at all times. You are with him, connected completely. He knows how he’s going to edit it by the end of the day. If he’s missing a shot, he gets it. He’s beyond an auteur, he’s like a mastermind.”

Debuting in the Midnight Screenings section on Saturday night, the hour-and-20-minute “Full Phil” follows an American father-daughter duo — played by an on-form Woody Harrelson and Stewart — who take a trip to Paris in an attempt to reconnect. Their plans are quickly deterred by protests, a nosy hotel employee, an obsession with a ’50s horror movie and an endless stream of French cuisine, with each obstacle more ridiculous than the next.

“That’s the Quentin Dupieux special because he shoves a lot into that short period of time,” Stewart says. “His movies are kind of like sucker punches, but sweet ones.”

Below, Stewart speaks more about finally working with Harrelson, eating an obscene amount of food while filming, her disdain for the U.S. studio system and more.

You just started filming “Flesh of the Gods,” a vampire thriller co-starring Wagner Moura. How’s it going?

We’re in week one, so we’re just all hands on deck right now. We’re just like, fucking knee deep and having an incredible time. Panos is the shit. We’re just like, lost in his psychedelic dreamscape.

Tell me about how you first got involved in “Full Phil” and what drew you to the project.

I heard [about Dupieux’s process] and I was just like, “Oh my God, I’m dying to work with him.” And it’s kind of new for me. His wheelhouse is grounded and tender, but definitely surrealist and occasionally broad. Also I was like, totally in love with Woody and have been forever. As an actor, I just admire him so much and he’s such a nice guy. It’s a really sweet story, a father and daughter trying to reconnect and doing all the wrong things in order to achieve that but in such an absurd and kind of devastating, sardonic, fucked way. I was like, “Oh man, I really think that could be a great movie.” And I just wanted to work in Paris and I wanted to meet that director. I’m pretty obsessed with him.

What was it like working with Harrelson and playing his daughter? Was this your first time meeting him?

We’ve been trying to work together for years, and it just never lined up. I had a pretty out-of-the-blue hang when I was a teenager with him. We were talking about another film and he came and took me to a vegan spot in the valley and we had a really nice time. Like, we just became friends even when I was kind of a kiddo. When I heard he was doing this movie, I just — sometimes you don’t have connections with people, sometimes you can’t fathom like, “Oh, I could be your kid” — but with him, it was such an easy fit. And we drive each other kind of crazy in real [life], so it’s perfect. He reminds me of my dad in some ways. Sometimes I’m like, “OK, stop yelling at Woody” — I’ll realize I’m being like, “No! You don’t understand!”

You two are basically arguing the entire film. How much of that was in the script and how did you establish that father-daughter banter?

It all comes from Quentin. He has a young daughter, and I think he is looking into the future sort of petrified. I mean, he was gleefully encouraging me to be as bratty as I possibly could because I think he was just trying to create his worst dream. Also, Woody’s character Phil, he’s really just got blinders on. And it’s so sad and endearing to see somebody so desperate in reaching out for love, but doing it in all the wrong ways. He’s a total fucking narcissist, but then at the same time they still have this history that he wants to draw from. To have real, transparent conversations with your family, especially with your mother and father, it’s just tough. He needs to actually see her as a human being that is not of him. That’s the thing, some narcissistic fathers — I don’t even mean this as disparaging, but it’s an epidemic really — they love you in so far as they can kind of claim you. It’s like their pride is related to the fact that they’ve created you. And you’re like, no! I am me! I am not you.

You are also non-stop eating food throughout the film. Were you actually eating and how did you do that?

It was the hardest part of the entire job, because we also never stopped talking. I was running lines for weeks being like, “Oh cool, I can do this, this and this.” And then I was like, “I can’t get a word out of my fucking mouth, considering he wants me to never have it empty!” Logistically it was a struggle also working with renowned French chefs who really didn’t understand the filmmaking process and wanted it to taste really good. And I was like, “You guys are going to kill me! I need this to be like, cauliflower as fuck or I’ll die.” It’s honestly an incredibly grotesque and honestly hilarious and very real kind of metaphor. I mean, we’re walking around the streets of Paris eating donuts and they’re rioting and we’re like, “Where are we going for dinner?” So the food really mattered, and I walked uphill a lot and I just ate a lot. There was no way around it. We only did very long takes, so there was no spit-bucketing. There were no cutting points. Every once and a while, I would be like, “I have to [stop].” The bites were never big enough. He would literally come over to me and make a certain sort of piggy face and I would realize I wasn’t eating enough and be like, “Oh God, OK, I’ll do more on this one.”

You’ve talked a bit before about how difficult it is to make a film in the U.S. now and your desire to work more internationally. How did your experience on “Full Phil” underscore that feeling?

I’m just so sick of the rules and I’m so sick of the system. It is not designed for artists to express themselves. We’re just really under the thumb of different priorities that don’t align with real dream-making. And I don’t mean to wax poetically because I mean this so very literally, I just don’t think that it’s possible to create sort of radical, vital work under capitalistic parameters. Especially like, most of the people in charge are a bunch of bros that have come up under a bunch of other bros and those people don’t really identify with the type of things that I personally want to say, that the people I align with want to say.

You know, the three movies that go to Cannes and do well, they get bought by the studios that I somewhat admire that do well at distributing them and winning fucking Oscars. And that’s cool. But it’s like, totally not enough. And what, are we going to like, wait to be chosen like a fucking golden ticket? Like, “I got the golden ticket! I can make one fucking movie!” We need to make more work. There needs to be more work, more output, more connection and less fear and less fucking bureaucracy and also less making billionaires more fucking billionaires. It’s driving me insane. We spend so much money, we just like hemorrhage money making stuff in a system that honestly is not designed for us. Like we can’t shoot in L.A., it’s absolutely impossible and it’s where our fucking entire business was born. There’s no way to play the game anymore.

The studios aren’t really even in Cannes this year!

It’s OK, because guess what happens when things break or die? It’s good, I think. Especially because I’ve been working since I was 9, I see a horizon that doesn’t resemble anything that I’ve seen before. It’s so new because our industry is so utterly devastated. And so I think actually, there’s so much hope in that. We just have to grab it.

You were here last year with your directorial debut “The Chronology of Water.” How do you reflect on that moment now, especially the experience of trying to get distribution for the film?

Oh gosh, it’s been such a gauntlet, that one. I’ve just designed the record art for releasing our soundtrack, and so it’s truly now the last creative thing that I have to leave on the table for that movie and fully move on. The two next films that I want to make are very, very clear to me. I want to make one by the end of the year after I work on this Amazon show and then next year I’m going to be shooting in April this other thing that I have in mind. This is what I want to do and it’s completely changed my life realizing that particular project, really just pushing it all the way. And so I feel like I’ve lost so much fucking time. I’m like, it’s been one year and I’ve acted in three more movies. What?! I love every director I’ve worked for, I absolutely love my job, it’s why I love directing. But at the same time, I just can’t fucking do that anymore or I’m never going to make my [own movies].

Speaking to the whole how do you get stuff seen and share it with people who actually care, don’t hold me to anything … But my goal is to make something for really nothing with my friends before the end of the year and put it on fucking YouTube. And seriously, whatever money we make from that will be what I spend on my next one and there will be a trickle-down effect. I just don’t want to talk to these bros anymore. And by the way, I’d be lucky to have anything I worked on be distributed by like, A24 or Neon — people who, by the way, I am friends with. Like, these are my homies. It’s just that I don’t want to make… I love Hollywood, I love big movies, [but] I don’t think I’d be very good at making them. I want to make weird shit. And I’m fully OK doing that in a kind of insulated, bizarre way. But I don’t want to do the thing where I wait five years for someone to give me $1 million to make something. I’m going to make it fucking tomorrow. Because also like, what the fuck. I’ve been working for a long time — I’m just going to sit here doing the same thing over and over amassing wealth? No. It’s a ridiculous way to live your life.

I have to ask — at Cannes last year, Kim Gordon told us that there was a biopic series you two were working on together at some point. Is that still in the works?

She wrote a memoir that’s one of my faves, it’s called “Girl in a Band.” And I think that they were trying to think of some beautiful anthology approach to doing her life story but kind of in an episodic, elliptical way with different directors. But I think that changed and Kim’s working on conceiving the best approach. They were talking to me about it for a second, and I think that’s actually how I met Kim a few years ago. She came up to me at a Chanel afterparty thing once. She kind of floated over like the punk rock Joan Didion and said, “Hey, sorry I can’t really hear in here, but it’s really nice to see you.” Just like the warmest, coolest — she really feels like energetically godmom stuff. I mean, I would love to be a part of that project, but I’m not sure actually what they are doing with it. I do know someone’s taking care of it though, which I’m really looking forward to.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.