{"id":403903,"date":"2025-11-25T15:46:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403903\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T15:46:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T15:46:27","slug":"kristen-stewart-and-imogen-poots-interview-on-the-chronology-of-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/403903\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristen Stewart and Imogen Poots Interview on The Chronology of Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

written by <\/strong>ARIEL LEBEAU
photography<\/strong> MORGAN MAHER
styling<\/strong> ESTHER MATILLA<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been raining for days in Los Angeles. In a 4000-square-foot suite at L\u2019Ermitage hotel, where our i-D photo shoot with Kristen Stewart and Imogen Poots is taking place, the floor-to-ceiling windows look out over a panorama of gray clouds and even grayer concrete. \u201cWhat an incredible day in L.A.,\u201d Stewart says as she glances through the glass. \u201cI can\u2019t believe we\u2019re shooting inside.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The multi-room suite is so massive that Stewart and Poots remain almost completely out of my sight until the moment they are ready to shoot. Before I see them, I hear them, as sounds waft from their glam room: the buzz of electric hair clippers, muffled songs by Liz Phair and The The, bursts of laughter and more laughter. Once they do emerge, the beauty and coolness they exude feels so effortless one wouldn\u2019t assume it took any preparation at all. Padding around in bare feet, they match each other with artfully-tousled \u201cI woke up like this\u201d hair and oversized suits big enough to make David Byrne proud. Stewart curls her lip and sneers at the camera. \u201cWe\u2019re so sick of being actresses in photos, so today it\u2019s like, \u2018We\u2019re in a band,\u2019\u201d she growls. She and Poots pose closely together, taking turns cradling one another and frequently cracking each other up between frames with a private joke or gesture.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\tImogen wears jacket CHANEL, Bodysuit stylist\u2019s own, Necklace David Yurman. Kristen wears jacket Chanel, Bodysuit and top stylist’s own, top necklace stylist’s own, bottom necklace David Yurman.\t\t<\/p>\n

When I speak to Stewart and Poots the next morning over Zoom, the rain still hasn\u2019t let up. Poots is slightly delayed due to flooding in her hotel room, but she seems no more bothered by the elements than Stewart. In fact, they both seem tickled by the irony of water insinuating itself so overtly into the press tour for their film, The Chronology of Water. \u201cIsn\u2019t it crazy?\u201d Poots remarks. \u201cWhen your [publicist] said that, I was like, \u2018Come on,\u2019\u201d Stewart replies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After an eight-year gestation period, Stewart and Poots are readying themselves for the release of Chronology, Stewart\u2019s feature directorial debut, out December 5 in New York and Los Angeles before it opens across the U.S. on January 9. It\u2019s a milestone that is more hard-won than one would guess for a star of Stewart\u2019s stature; she has been vocal about how difficult it was to secure funding for the project since she first discovered the book in 2017 and announced her intentions to adapt it in 2018. Despite Stewart\u2019s pedigree as an Oscar-nominated performer and indie cinema icon\u2014acting in films by Olivier Assayas, Kelly Reichardt, David Cronenberg, and Pablo Larra\u00edn\u2014as well as her shortform directorial outings\u2014she directed a (presciently aquatic) 18-minute short called Come Swim in 2017, and boygenius: the film in 2023\u2014financiers were resistant to taking the plunge. In January 2024, Stewart\u2019s frustration led her to declare in a Variety cover story<\/a> that she would refuse to take on any new acting projects until Chronology was complete: \u201cI will quit the fucking business,\u201d she said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\tAll clothing Prada, Jewellery David Yurman\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tJacket Versace, Top and pants stylist\u2019s own, Necklaces and ring David Yurman, Earrings Lie\t\t<\/p>\n

Shaking the table worked just well enough, though Stewart had to venture to international waters to get the job done, ultimately shooting in Latvia and Malta over 32 days in 2024. \u201cWe had to leave the United States to make this possible,\u201d Stewart said<\/a> while promoting Chronology at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the Un Certain Regard section. \u201cThank God I stamped my feet, because if I didn\u2019t, it wouldn\u2019t have happened,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cI did have to throw a public temper tantrum in order to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chronology of Water is based on Lidia Yuknavitch\u2019s acclaimed 2011 novel of the same name. The title refers to the book\u2019s (and the film\u2019s)\u00a0 narrative fluidity. As Yuknavitch reflects on the formative events of her past\u2014childhood abuse, sexual awakenings, doomed relationships, addiction, loss\u2014her memories come in tidal waves, crashing against the boundaries of time and recollection. \u201cYour life doesn\u2019t happen in any kind of order\u2026 It\u2019s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common,\u201d she writes early in the book. \u201cAll the events of my life swim in and out between each other. Without chronology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe reason that this book spoke to me was because it conjured my own shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

KRISTEN STEWART on adapting \u201cThe Chronology of Water\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In translating the memoir to screen (with the help of Yuknavitch\u2019s husband Andy Mingo as screenwriter), Stewart stays true to the unbridled nature of Yuknavitch\u2019s prose, eschewing linearity in favor of a visceral sensory collage that puts you in her protagonist\u2019s head. Some memories come in small, fragmented drops\u2014staccato shots of blood circling a drain, or handlebars on a child\u2019s bike\u2014while others burst forth like emotional geysers. (Water isn\u2019t the only symbolically-charged liquid at work, there is also blood, sweat, tears, spit, cum, and vomit. Chronology is an ode to all that the body holds, as well as what it releases\u2014figuratively and literally.) Lidia, as played by a thunderous Poots, cascades across the emotional spectrum from enraged to aggrieved to fucked-up to blissed-out and back again. It is an uncompromising film that pushes you straight into the deep end and expects you to sink or swim.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\tJacket MM6 Maison Margiela, Bra Calvin Klein, Skirt Skirts by Britt Liberg, Top necklace stylist\u2019s own, Bottom necklace and ring David Yurman\t\t<\/p>\n

The subjective nature of the film, which follows Lidia from her days as a competitive swimmer at age 18 to her career as a writer and professor in her 40s, confers substance as well as style. \u201cLidia\u2019s inner voice spoke to mine, and her memories started to overlap with my life in a way that I thought was so cinematic\u2026 [Through art,] you start to have interactions with parts of your life that felt inaccessible,\u201d Stewart says, explaining that what drew her to Yuknavitch\u2019s story was how much it reflected her own. \u201cI have such reverence and fucking respect for Lidia and the particularities of who she is and her life and her voice and everything, but the reason that this book spoke to me was because it conjured my own shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poots felt similarly about Stewart\u2019s script. \u201cIt was clearly very her,\u201d she thought, even though she didn\u2019t yet know Stewart at the time she read it. \u201cI\u2019d never read anything like it. It was so original.\u201d Once Stewart offered her the role (in an email that, according to Poots, went something like, \u201cHey dude, you wanna make this movie with me?\u201d), they soon forged an intimate working dynamic, bonding over books and films, and developing a shared creative and emotional lexicon. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of different strands within our friendship and the way that we collaborated,\u201d Poots says, \u201cBut we definitely connected over how much things matter to us\u2026 [We are] two people who just cannot wait to express how much things matter to them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was an opportunity to open up an echo chamber,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cI wanted to invite Imogen\u2019s life into mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tall clothing prada\t\t<\/p>\n

The ease and intimacy between Stewart and Poots is palpable. You could call it sisterly, but there\u2019s more: It crackles with the electricity of two people who have lived past lives together. In conversation, each is visibly energized by the other\u2019s ideas; they volley back and forth, picking up where the other left off, almost telepathically. They get giddy joking about which Beatles they most identify with. \u201cI think you would be Paul, because he cares about the band so much,\u201d Poots says to Stewart, who bristles. \u201cBut he\u2019s so reasonable,\u201d she sighs. (They both agree Poots would be Ringo.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both voracious readers, they pepper our conversation with names like Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Sheila Heti, Denis Johnson. The film forges a unique conversation with literature, echoing but also building upon the foundation of Yuknavitch\u2019s memoir. In preparation for the role, Stewart gifted Poots the rest of Yuknavitch\u2019s books, as well as several works by the late postmodernist writer Kathy Acker, who is referenced in the film when Lidia reads a graphic passage from Empire of the Senseless, to her classmates\u2019 chagrin. (In the book, Yuknavitch also describes her sexual relationship with Acker, who eventually became her mentor.)\u00a0 One can intuit the influence of the radical writers Stewart and Poots gravitate to on the gutsy, defiant voice of the film.<\/p>\n

Actress Lili Taylor, a close friend and mentor to Poots, also shared two books she thought would help: Bonnie Tsui\u2019s Why We Swim and Leanne Shapton\u2019s Swimming Studies, which became key references for Poots during prep. \u201cI knew the experience was going to be a profound one for Immy. It was going to require\u00a0 her to be physically and psychologically vulnerable,\u201d Taylor recollected to i-D via email. \u201c[Poots] is open and courageous, so she is able to travel wherever the scene needs to go\u2013\u2013often into the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tJacket MM6 Maison Margiela, Bra Calvin Klein, Top necklace, bottom necklace, ring David Yurman, Middle necklace stylist\u2019s own\t\t<\/p>\n

As for cinematic inspirations, the film whose influence on Chronology is most immediately apparent is Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay\u2019s own unflinching feature debut from 2002 (also adapted from a book.) Ramsay\u2019s thorny character study, shot in a subjective, photographic style, offers a favorable precedent that informs and buoys Stewart\u2019s approach. (A more direct connection: Esm\u00e9 Creed-Miles, daughter of Morvern\u2019s lead actress Samantha Morton, plays a small role in Chronology.) Stewart emphatically confirms Morvern is a key inspiration. \u201cIt\u2019s literally first on my list. I saw that movie kind of late in the game [and] I screamed at my fucking screen,\u201d Stewart says, describing how strongly she identified with Ramsay\u2019s sensibility. \u201cThere are some things that feel like permission, and then there are some things that just feel like you. I was like, \u2018How do you know? Get out of my head.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(Coincidentally, or maybe through the psychic transference Stewart is alluding to, Ramsay\u2019s latest film Die My Love also happens to follow the psychological and physical tumult of a woman writer protagonist, and incidentally happens to star Stewart\u2019s ex, Robert Pattinson. Although I\u2019m dying to ask whether she\u2019s seen it, time constraints prevent me.)<\/p>\n

Stewart shares with me a list of 24 films that inspired her, including Morvern Callar as well as a number of Ramsay\u2019s shorts, Rebecca Miller\u2019s Angela, Catherine Breillat\u2019s A Real Young Girl, Celine Sciamma\u2019s Water Lilies, Agnes Varda\u2019s Le Bonheur and Jacquot de Nantes, and Chick Strand\u2019s Soft Fiction (\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful and important and people should watch it.\u201d) Poots also cites Julia Reichert\u2019s 1971 documentary Growing Up Female as one of the films she and Stewart watched during pre-production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Olivier Assayas, who directed Stewart in Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, isn\u2019t at all surprised by how fully-formed Chronology feels for a first feature. \u201cI expected no less from Kristen,\u201d he tells me, smiling, on a Zoom call from Paris. \u201cShe has the whole package. The main thing she has to an impressive extreme is the understanding of actors\u2026 but also she has a very strong visual sense. It\u2019s not just doing what she has seen other filmmakers do\u2026 It\u2019s a language all her own.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThere is an energy [with Kristen] that I\u2019ve never found with anyone else, and that\u2019s a very sacred thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

imogen poots<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Assayas also recognizes the parallel between Yuknavitch\u2019s story of finding her voice through writing and Stewart\u2019s own artistic journey. \u201cShe\u2019s adapting an autobiographical novel, but ultimately, she\u2019s talking about herself and her own path to become an artist,\u201d he observes. \u201cIt seemed so obvious that she, at some point, would become a filmmaker that it didn\u2019t even need saying. Gradually she realized it\u2019s more about coming to terms with herself\u2026 I knew it would be a long road, but I knew that eventually she would make it, because I think she\u2019s one of those [people] who ultimately does exactly what she wants to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivid 16mm cinematography by Corey C. Waters adds to Chronology\u2019s feeling of looking back in time at the diffuse edges of memory. \u201cI wanted this movie to feel like it was found in an attic\u2026 something that felt stitched together,\u201d Stewart says of the choice to shoot on celluloid. \u201cIt totally informed my editorial process. There were times where the moment was done because we ran out of film, you know? And that\u2019s sometimes how you remember your life.\u201d This contributed as much to the movie\u2019s soul as to its aesthetic. \u201cIf you roll out [of film], your film turns pink, yellow, orange, red\u2014it becomes something that feels bloody and like a scar and feels burned,\u201d she says. \u201cThe movie feels like a fucking body.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film does feel like a living, breathing amalgamation of Stewart\u2019s and Poots\u2019 personal experiences, emotions, ideas and references blended with Yuknavitch\u2019s\u2013\u2013with raw nerves, scraped knees, and an open heart. Their mutual dedication to the film and synonymously, to each other, makes Chronology\u2019s sheer existence a veritable artistic victory. \u201cThe movie is about listening to yourself, which is really hard to do when the voice in the room that is the loudest is the patriarchy\u2026 It took me a really, really, really long time to trust myself,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cFinding Immy and making this movie [felt], this sounds cheesy, but like unearthing a battle cry. It felt joyous as fuck.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an energy [with Kristen] that I\u2019ve never found with anyone else, and that\u2019s a very sacred thing,\u201d says Poots. \u201cThat\u2019s a historical thing in your own life, to have experienced that. And then to make something [together] and have that thing exist, is huge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A much different version of Chronology could have been assembled in the editing bay; a version that\u2019s more neat, less chaotic, less dark, more broadly palatable to distributors and casual audiences and awards bodies, but the conviction of Stewarts\u2019 and Poots\u2019 creative choices constitute the film\u2019s ultimate achievement. \u201cThere\u2019s some idea that people still want simplicity, because there\u2019s great elegance to simplicity. If you say, \u2018This is what it is to be a woman,\u2019 that goes down easy, right?\u201d Poots says. \u201cIt\u2019s a thorny, rotten, wondrous, astonishing thing [to be a woman]. I am so tired of being projected upon\u2026 It\u2019s all other people\u2019s misplaced horror and guilt and all of that that we then have to carry on our backs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chronology honors the essential contradictions of the feminine experience; the pleasure and rage that intertwine. \u201cI think we\u2019re both, in our own ways, quite livid,\u201d says Poots. \u201cIt\u2019s also the coolest thing about each other, I think, how that comes out.\u201d As Stewart puts it, \u201cRage can be the most fun thing ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably, the film won\u2019t be for everyone, but Stewart is unafraid of the uncomfortable conversations that will follow. \u201cI always get, like, \u2018Ah, it\u2019s really tough,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Yeah, but it\u2019s fun, right?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

in the lead image <\/strong>KRISTEN WEARS JACKET VALENTINO. IMOGEN WEARS ALL CLOTHING GUCCI, NECKLACE AND RINGS DAVID YURMAN, EARRINGS LIE. <\/p>\n

hair stylist for imogen poots <\/strong>JOHN D
makeup artist for imogen poots <\/strong>JO BAKER using Chanel
hair stylist for kristen stewart <\/strong>ADIR ABERGEL
makeup for kristen stewart<\/strong> MAI QU\u1ef2NH using Chanel
nail technician<\/strong> ERI ISHIZU
photo assistant <\/strong>BENNET PEREZ
stylist assistants<\/strong> GEM BROOKES, ELIZAVETA NOVIKOVA, IAN WHALLEY location<\/strong> L\u2019ERMITAGE BEVERLY HILLS
production<\/strong> THE MORRISON GROUP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"written by ARIEL LEBEAUphotography MORGAN MAHERstyling ESTHER MATILLA It\u2019s been raining for days in Los Angeles. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":403904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,190875,1149,100717,53,100718,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-403903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-imogen-poots","10":"tag-interviews","11":"tag-kristen-stewart","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-the-chronology-of-water","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115611120988060064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}