If you’ve ever wondered where Kristen Stewart gets that charming edge from, just ask her mother! Seasoned Hollywood script-supervisor Jules Stewart makes her directorial debut with K-11, a gripping prison drama that’s a far cry from her daughter’s Twilight Saga blockbusters.
“I can’t watch Spider-Man anymore,” Jules tells Us Weekly. “I just can’t watch six variations of the same thing — it just makes me a little crazy.” Instead, Jules sought out to make a film that she hoped would make people think a little bit more about something unique and different.
Set inside a section of the Los Angeles County Jail reserved for LGBT inmates, K-11 explores the politics of race and gender equality through Raymond Saxx (Goran Visnjik), a businessman who is forced to deal with violence, crooked cops and a manipulative transgendered inmate named Mousey (Kate Del Castillo) on his quest to escape K-11, all while piecing together how he ended up there in the first place.
“In the dorm, there’s no racial issues — they’re all gay or transgender,” Jules says. “That’s what holds them together. So race is not an issue, which was a big message in this film. . . It doesn’t matter what color you are, everybody is the same.”
The film also stars Portia Doubleday as Butterfly, a role that Kristen had originally attached herself to six years ago while she was filming the first Twilight movie. The unexpected success of the franchise took Kristen’s career in a completely different direction.
“She kept working and she kept working and she kept working,” Jules explains. “And she got really big and we were still really small and I was like, ‘Go! Go do Snow White, please, go make those big films honey, that’s wonderful!'”
Kristen does have a small part in the film as a secretary who picks up a very important phone call. Though Jules stands by her decision to recast her daughter’s original role, the filmmaker still believes that Kristen would have done the part justice. “Kristen has a dark side,” she tells Us. “Kristen has the edge — thank god, right?”
K-11 will be released on March 15 in 15 cities across the U.S. and will be available On Demand through local cable companies. Visit www.K11TheMovie.com for more information on where K-11 is playing.
