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Hello World, They’re Your Wild Girls: “The Runaways” Press Junket

One of the perks of this job is interviewing celebrities. Other perks include getting paid to watch television, being invited to cool parties and having Jane Lynch say “Hi” to you while having brunch on a random Sunday morning. But that’s another story.

So when I was sent to cover the press junket for the upcoming film, The Runaways, no one had to ask me twice. Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and writer-director Floria Sigismondi were all scheduled to take our questions, up close, in-person, roundtable-style.

I arrived at a very swanky hotel in Beverly Hills, received my room assignment and milled around with the real journalists in the hospitality suite. I didn’t take advantage of the full lunch buffet because the last thing I need is to be assaulting Kristen Stewart with pasta salad breath. Instead, I chose to drink as much free Pellegrino as I could in two hours.

Eventually, I made my way to my assigned room. Other journalists were already seated, so I took the last empty spot, next to two reserved seats. I was reading a text message on my phone when someone pulled out a chair. I looked up in time to see Joan Jett sit down. Next to me.

As you would expect, Joan was wearing a lot of black. Even her papers wear black. When you’re a rock star, you’re a rock star 24/7.

The roundtable interview format has no set rules, other than be courteous to your fellow writers, wait for your moment, and jump in. Here are the highlights of my afternoon:

Question: Did you have [casting] input, and what was your first thought when you found out [Kristen Stewart] was connected to the part [of playing you]?

Joan Jett: My only real input on the casting was to suggest if they could get real teenagers, it would make a difference. ‘Cause even in a couple of years, the energy shifts. That was my only comment. I heard that Kristen had been cast — Twilight had come out a couple of months earlier — so, I knew who she was. I had seen her face all over the place. But I had also seen some of her films. I had seen Panic Room, maybe another earlier one, so I was familiar with her work and I wasn’t colored by that Twilight label. I was really into it.

Right before she went to start [shooting] New Moon, we had a day together. And I just kind of dumped on her for a few hours about The Runaways and what it meant to me, and why I wanted to do it, anything I could think of, and probably a few things that I wouldn’t tell anybody else: private, personal stuff.

I asked her if she was going to cut her hair, and she said, “Yeah!” I really got a sense that there was commitment there, that she really wanted to be authentic. She realized a lot of things: that The Runaways were important to a lot of people, that we were still living — or some of us, God rest Sandy West’s soul — so, I think she took it seriously.

Serious shagiliousness

Q: What traits did you guys share? As you got to know her, what did you see of yourself, in her?

JJ: [Kristen] is her own person, but I think, energetically, physically, the way we kind of move in a room, is similar. Now, there may be more similarities that I don’t know about, that we didn’t have a chance to even discover.

But she loves music, she played guitar before we met, she can carry a tune. I thought it was essential that these girls sing the songs, where they could. It’s really obvious when you’re lip-syncing to an old Runaways’ track. I thought they did a really great job.

Q: What’s it like seeing your life on the big screen?

JJ: It’s pretty surreal. We were so dismissed so much of the time, and now, something is resonating. There’s a teenage story in there about rebellion, fighting authority, [being] told that girls can’t do something, just because no one ever saw it before. My parents told me I could be anything I wanted [to be] when I was five or six. I really took it to heart.

Jett being exactly what she wants to be

AfterEllen.com: Do you think the sexual relationship you once had with Cherie Currie was accurately portrayed in the film?

JJ: Was it accurate? That’s too much of a loaded question. Things happen. People experiment. Teenagers did it before me, they did it during me, they did it after me. It’s no big deal. There’s a lot of focus on it, and I do understand why, but to me… accurate? [The movie] would have had a lot [stronger] rating.

The room burst into laughter.

Next: Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning

After Jett left, Kristen Stewart and her co-star Dakota Fanning walked in together. Stewart sat down next to me and immediately jack-knifed her legs up under herself, and put her feet on her chair. Fanning sat with her legs crossed, hands in her lap. Her demure nature was betrayed only by her surprisingly dangerous shoes: wild, black leather, high-heeled dominatrix kicks. Loved them.

Question: What did you think of the wardrobe, hair, make-up and all of that?

Dakota Fanning: I loved it. I was really excited that I got to keep it.

Q: You got to keep it?

DF: Yeah, I got to keep pretty much everything. It became really important to me and I was really protective of my clothes.

Q: Including the lingerie?

DF: Oh yeah! [laughter] I was the most protective of those!

Q: Kristen, Joan talked about the hair. And you told her you were really going to cut your hair. That showed a certain level of commitment on your part…

Kristen Stewart: I love how that’s her thing. She really holds onto the hair thing…[laughter] I needed to feel sweat dripping down my face. I would have felt like a fraud if I had a wig on. I’ve worn wigs in the past. They can look great and a lot of actresses won’t work without them. Dakota’s wig looks amazing. She would literally be like [sweeps hair back with one hand.] [addressing Fanning] You worked really well with it. Sometimes, they are a serious problem.

Q: Did it help you become Joan Jett?

KS: Oh yeah. How could she feel I was the right person to play her? She’s so different from me, really. The wardrobe and the hair, you get on set with everyone else, and it slowly becomes a reality you can believe. As soon as you get there, it all sort of comes together. I can’t really bring myself to do anything until I’m on set.

Q: [to Fanning] Did being 15 years-old in the film — the age that Cherie was — help you connect to her and to the character?

DF: Yeah, I think it did. I really liked that it was authentic. And because of the subject matter, I didn’t want people to think that I was trying to be older than I was. And to be authentic to [Currie’s] age was important. It just worked out.

KS: It’s such a Hollywood thing to hired older actors to play younger parts. But, especially with this, [there’s an] impact to watching girls that age behave like that.

Q: Can you [both] describe how your friendship has evolved?

KS: It’s weird to talk about your friends when they’re sitting right next to you. [to Fanning] Go for it. Go.

DS: Oh, throwing me under the bus a little bit. [laughter] Working this closely with someone, you can’t help but become bonded with them. It helps when you actually like them and actually get along really well, and become really good friends. I haven’t done a lot of movies with people close to my own age to have a good friend like that. So, I was excited to do that and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to do it with.

Q: You guys got extra close during the filming of [the kissing/love scene.] How was that?

DF: [to Stewart] I answered the other one, so… [laughter]

KS: [to Fanning] You’re blushing a little bit. [laughter] It was cool. I didn’t mind. The way that it happened in the script, it was a just moment in time. It was fun and natural and just impulsive. They don’t have that type of relationship that’s like, “Ooh, they’re closer than normal.” They were just best friends. It was just that time.

Q: Kristen, [You were previously asked] who was a better kisser: your Yellow Handkerchief co-star or your Twilight co-star? Now we have another one… [long silence]

DF: [to Stewart] She’s asking you which one.

KS: I mean, like… Yeah. I don’t know. How do you answer that? I didn’t answer that [question back then]. I don’t know.

AfterEllen: How did you guys feel about Kathryn Bigelow winning this year’s Oscar for Best Director?

KS: I thought that was really great.

DF: I loved that movie (The Hurt Locker) too. It was wonderful.

AE: Well, as The Runaways did in the 70s, she’s a woman succeeding in a male-dominated genre.

KS: If you make something good, you’re going to get recognized for it. But it’s so hard to get there. She’s obviously really talented, smart and awesome.

Q: Beyond the Twilight phenomenon, how do you imagine your professional lives evolving? And will you miss it when it’s gone — that Twilight period?

DF: I’m not a huge part of that. I’m just in a few scenes…

KS: [to Fanning] No, come on.

DF: [laughs] I’m just in a few scenes, but I will be sad when I don’t get to wear red contacts anymore.

KS: Well, it’s the only opportunity I’ve ever had to do something so concentrated with something I love, so I feel like I could go back to any character [now.]

As Kristen and Dakota were spirited away by their handlers, we all had the sense they didn’t want Stewart talking about Twilight for some reason. That was fine with me, but I did want her to answer the kissing question. Guess we’ll never know.

Next: Cherie Currie

The first thing I noticed about Cherie Currie was her hair: a full, blond mane that could take on Lita Ford’s ‘doo any day of the week.

Cherie shook all our hands and made a joke about the unforgiving afternoon sunlight that filled the room. I thought she looked great — like a woman who lived to tell. And tell, she did.

Question: Do you like the film? Is there anything you think they should have put in, that they left out?

Cherie Currie: There were some things I wish they had put it. There were reasons why things happened. There were reasons why I cut my hair. My twin sister’s boyfriend, who was in his 20s — and I’m only 15 — had a thing for virgins. And as soon as he found out I was a virgin, he made sure that I was not going to be [one] at force. And that sucked. And so, I was very angry.

Q: So, cutting your hair was in response to that?

CC: Yeah, of course… The fact that I couldn’t quite deal with the rape, I decided to become David Bowie. I hid out in David Bowie for a while.

Q: Was there joy for you in your Runaways experience?

CC: Of course! There was so much joy, as long as Lita Ford wasn’t in the room. [laughter] She was tough. Otherwise, it was a blast.

AfterEllen: Do you anything would have changed, had the band stayed together a little longer?

CC: Yes. And that is really my only regret. I wouldn’t change anything in my life, nothing, even as hard as some of these things were. But I just wish somehow, we would have taken a couple of months off and re-grouped. Because by the time I left this band — and again, it was because Lita busted the door down and threatened me, physically — I had just had enough by that time. If we had taken a couple of months off and re-grouped, and started communicating again, I would never have left that band.

AE: What do you think Sandy West would say, if she were alive today?

CC: [long pause] Oh God, I wish she was here. This would mean so much to her. But I think she is here. I really do. I truly do, because I don’t think Joan and I could do this otherwise. She was so deserving.

Q: What was your take on seeing Dakota be you?

CC: Come on! [It’s like] the greatest cheesecake with the best strawberry! The great love affair! All the most magical things in life, all rolled into one package called Dakota Fanning.

Q: What was the thing that Dakota did that made you think, “That’s me”?

CC: She comes across as smart in this film. And you know, I really was. I kept really quiet [back then] but Dakota just got it. And she wanted to know how I felt. What did I really feel when Lita threw that magazine at me [during a big confrontation while on tour in Japan]. Or what did I feel when I realized that Kim [Fowley] had set me up? And everyone was so mad at me, while I’m having the greatest experience of my life in Japan. It’s ruined now and [the band] blamed me.

At first, [director] Floria [Sigismondi] had it where Dakota really didn’t care. That is not the fact. The fact was, it broke me up. It was horrible. It destroyed… it was the starting of the end of the band, and that was Kim. Thank God there are actresses like Dakota Fanning, who can actually take a story that is so outrageous and make it real for me.

Next: Floria Sigismondi

The Runaways represents multi-media artist Floria Sigismondi’s first feature-length film. As its writer and director, Sigismondi was responsible for taking Currie’s autobiography and the band’s story, and doing them justice. She shared some of her vision of the film with us.

Question: How did your vision of the story evolve as you got to know the real people?

Floria Sigismondi: Meeting [Joan and Cherie] and seeing what was important to both of them and how they looked back at that time, you know, they look back on it both with fondness. But different kinds of feelings. The thing that I tried to capture was how different they were, even though they came together and they bonded.

Joan is very focused and music is very important to her. And the idea of this band is really important to her. And Cherie, her arc is very different. Her arc is trying to find things that feel good, [like] second-hand love in audiences that are not filling what her family is supposed to fill in her.

Q: Is there added pressure when the subjects of the film are contributing to it?

FS: Sure, there is… It’s about finding out what’s important but staying focused on the story… It’s about finding the focal point, and sticking with it. For me, it was about character. If a character trait was interesting, how do I get it into what I’m trying to tell? And try to have the true essences.

Q: Dakota said she was looking forward to the scene when she sings “Cherry Bomb.”

FS: She was really excited about it. It was so great to see, because I actually held her back in previous performance scenes. I didn’t want her to come across as too confident [yet] and she was probably waiting and waiting for that scene.

AfterEllen: Were there any conflicts about what you wanted to do artistically, versus what Joan or Cherie wanted to see, factually?

FS: No, I mean, they both read the script, and maybe had some details to talk about. It’s a film, it’s not a documentary. For me, it was really a story about the two of them, and not focusing on too much of what happened on the outside. You can get distracted.

Q: What are the things that are timeless in this story? This movie speaks to a lot of people, whether they ever heard of Joan Jett and The Runaways or not.

FS: For me, it was important to do a coming-of-age story. That time when you’re 15 and finding your identity. You’re in your body, feeling, and other people are reacting to you. You’re changing, confused, your hormones are going crazy. That’s what I loved about the music, too. That era was very apropos to the story because it was very physical and primal.

Joan Jett or Kristen Stewart? It’s Stewart getting primal.

AE: After The Runaways kicked down the door for all-girl bands in hard rock, no one really followed with the same level of success. People cite the Bangles and the Go-Go’s, but they were not rock bands. What happened to the revolution?

FS: No, it’s not really the same. The Runaways owned it. They owned their sexuality — it was a very hard, aggressive rock. I don’t think it’s happened [since]. It’s never blown up. Hopefully this will help a little bit. It feels a little like 2001.

AE: Joan Jett is still out there, doing what she loves. But she doesn’t have a lot of company.

FS: I know. I know Joan feels that way, too. She’s still committed, and that’s why we look up to her.

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