Kristen Stewart

Kristen Jaymes Stewart (born April 9, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the films Panic Room, Catch That Kid, Speak, Zathura, The Messengers, In the Land of Women, and the critically acclaimed Into the Wild. She recently finished filming Twilight.

Stewart was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Her father, John Stewart (not to be confused with The Daily Show's Jon Stewart), is a stage manager and television producer who worked for FOX. Her mother is a scriptwriter who comes from Australia. She has an older brother, Cameron. Stewart is an avid surfer and currently lives with her family in Los Angeles.

She subsequently appeared in the independent film The Safety of Objects where she played the tomboy daughter of a troubled single mother (Patricia Clarkson). Stewart had a role in the major Hollywood film Panic Room, playing the sullen, diabetic daughter of a divorced mother (Jodie Foster). While the film received mixed reviews, Stewart garnered positive notices for the role.

After Panic Room's success, Stewart was cast in another thriller, Cold Creek Manor, playing the daughter of Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone's characters; the film generally failed at the box office. Her first starring role followed, in the children's action-comedy Catch That Kid, opposite Max Thieriot and Corbin Bleu. To date, Stewart’s most critically acclaimed role may be in the television film Speak (2004), based on the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. Stewart, thirteen at the time of filming, played high school freshman Melinda Sordino who stops almost all verbal contact after being raped and has to deal with enormous amounts of emotional turmoil. Stewart has received great praise for playing the character, who had only a few speaking lines, but kept up a dark witted commentary inside her head throughout the film.