{"id":567170,"date":"2026-08-12T22:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/567170\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T22:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T22:50:16","slug":"kristen-stewart-got-high-to-talk-about-her-new-stoner-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/567170\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristen Stewart got high to talk about her new stoner comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Think of it as Chekhov\u2019s joint, just waiting there on a table to be smoked. It\u2019s the kind of thing that has been appearing lately as actors Kristen Stewart<\/a> and Alia Shawkat and writer-director Dylan Meyer promote their new stoner comedy \u201cThe Wrong Girls.\u201d (There has, perhaps not surprisingly, also been a lot of eating.) <\/p>\n

The trio are gathered around a conference table in the offices of an event space in the Frogtown <\/a>neighborhood of Los Angeles, having just completed a photo shoot. There is that joint, sitting in an ashtray, placed there by someone, just in case.<\/p>\n

To be clear, none of them are stoned right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not ashamed,\u201d says Stewart, 36, of smoking weed. \u201cI want be able to finish my sentences and then I\u2019ll smoke after.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how I feel,\u201d agrees Meyer, 38. \u201cSometimes you can really lose a thread.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three of them recall previous experiences with smoking pot in professional settings. \u201cI got too high,\u201d recalls Shawkat, 37, of a visit to the podcast \u201cGetting Doug with High\u201d in 2013. \u201cAnd it was not great.\u201d <\/p>\n

In theaters Friday, \u201cThe Wrong Girls\u201d is about two young women in Los Angeles who love to smoke weed and eat. Frankie (Stewart), who has never righted herself after dropping out of Stanford, is anxious that her best friend and roommate Molly (Shawkat), an aspiring chef, is pulling away from their deep friendship and toward her relationship with Josh (Zack Fox).<\/p>\n

Frankie and Molly spend most of their time getting high and hanging out until a case of mistaken identity and a briefcase full of a mysterious drug sets them on the run from a Danish pharmaceutical company, the U.S. government and maybe some very powerful squids. And they seem to have developed telekinetic powers and are now communicating with their cats.<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

Kristen Stewart, left, and Alia Shawkat in the movie \u201cThe Wrong Girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Neon)<\/p>\n

Though cannabis is legal in California<\/a> for both medical and adult recreational use, there can still be an air of rebellion in talking about it so openly. Meyer notes that, in the process of getting her movie made, she learned that weed comedies don\u2019t travel well overseas, becoming something of an issue when it comes to international sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t get along with weed and so that\u2019s why it still has a bit of a subversive feeling,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cAnd first of all, it\u2019s not federally legal. There\u2019s still huge chunks of the country and the rest of the world \u2014 it\u2019s not legal most other places. So it\u2019s this weird disconnect being in California and having the relationship to it that we have, which is very casual, and then realizing that in other places \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so not casual,\u201d Shawkat chimes in, helpfully.<\/p>\n

The movie is the debut as writer-director for Meyer, who is married <\/a>to Stewart. The couple produced the film through their company Nevermind Pictures, which they founded with Meyer\u2019s best friend Maggie McLean, also a producer on the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wrong Girls\u201d has a tactile and handmade feel to it, inspired by the punk-inflected lo-fi sci-fi of the 1984 cult classic \u201cRepo Man.\u201d Other sources of inspiration were the female friendships of \u201990s comedies \u201cDick\u201d and \u201cRomy and Michele\u2019s High School Reunion,\u201d the stoned logic of \u201cThe Big Lebowski\u201d and \u201cSmiley Face,\u201d<\/a> the general spirit of misadventure in \u201cWayne\u2019s World\u201d and \u201cBeavis and Butthead Do America\u201d and the chaotic satire of V\u011bra Chytilov\u00e1\u2019s radical 1966 Czech film \u201cDaisies.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cI think my taste in general lives at the nexus of a highbrow, lowbrow intersection,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cAnd I think that all of those influences came together to hopefully make something that feels like that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of sad to be like: When we get older, we all have to isolate and not be as close,\u201d says Stewart. \u201cI love this movie as a coming-of-age story for 36-year-old women who are just trying to be like, \u2018But I actually don\u2019t want to change.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Not that they were constantly making conscious references (they call it \u201cpulling refs\u201d) while working on their own film. The movie was made with a spirit of creativity and fun and now that they are promoting it, there is a challenge in maintaining that same mentality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m stoked actually to be doing all these silly eating shows and, like, smoke weed here, smoke weed there, instead of super-didactic interviews about why this movie\u2019s so important,\u201d says Stewart. \u201cIt\u2019s like, dude, it either captures your curiosity and imagination and you want to go see it or it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s not about what we\u2019re trying to posit into culture, even though it does attempt to posit a very particular thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a purposeful anti-authoritarian streak running through the film that makes it feel, even as purely fun as it is, like more than just a woozy lark.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually now that we\u2019re here sitting down with the L.A. Times, this would be the one environment that it would be kind of right to do that,\u201d Stewart adds.<\/p>\n

As the topic turns to the film\u2019s exploration of female friendship, Stewart interjects, \u201cThat\u2019s it. I\u2019m going to smoke some weed \u2014 that got too serious.\u201d She reaches for the joint and lights up, continuing to take the occasional drag throughout the rest of our conversation.<\/p>\n

The script is rooted in Meyer\u2019s own real-life friendship with McLean (minus the international pharmaceutical conspiracy). McLean\u2019s now-husband \u2014 the inspiration for the boyfriend character and actually named Josh \u2014 did the title design and other art for the movie.<\/p>\n

Meyer describes the story of Frankie and Molly as \u201ca romance, full stop.\u201d Her film rejects the idea that one has to give up the close intimacies of friendship once you transition into a coupled-up phase of life.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

\u201cI think my taste in general lives at the nexus of a high-brow, low-brow intersection,\u201d says Meyer. \u201cAnd I think that all of those influences came together to hopefully make something that feels like that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of sad to be like: When we get older, we all have to isolate and not be as close,\u201d says Stewart. \u201cYou can find shapes and models that aren\u2019t represented by the sort of classic idea of success that we all are raised by. I love this movie as a coming-of-age story for 36-year-old women who are just trying to be like, \u2018But I actually don\u2019t want to change.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think we associate that kind of immaturity and stagnation with men a lot more than we do with women,\u201d Meyer adds. \u201cBut I know a lot of immature stagnant women and I have been an immature stagnant woman. And I believe they\u2019re out there. I think that there are more of them than we\u2019ve been led to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that they\u2019ve been gaslit into thinking that they\u2019re stagnant when they actually just know who they are,\u201d says Stewart.<\/p>\n

In actuality, Meyer was more Frankie and McLean was more Molly, though she says once Stewart and Shawkat were cast, the characters came to life more on their own. And for Stewart, playing a character based on someone she has such a personal relationship with was less complicated than might be expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were aspects of Frankie\u2019s character that I know are in Dylan, but I was not trying to capture an essence,\u201d says Stewart, an Oscar nominee for her portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales in \u201cSpencer.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was never looking to her thinking that this was autobiography or anything,\u201d she says. \u201cI also really did want to come at it with my own neuroses because Frankie does have a kind of ahead-of-herself, afraid but then overly-confident overcompensation in reaction to that. And I\u2019m like, I get that. And I don\u2019t think Dylan really has that. Honestly, my overlaps interested me more than any overlaps with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

\u201cAs dumb and playful and crazy as it is, it has amazing structure,\u201d says Shawkat of the story. \u201cAnd that\u2019s actually really hard to do and connect the tissue of all of it and have emotional stakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The movie can sometimes feel purposefully sloppy but somehow it\u2019s never slapdash. Even the strangest of things happen for a reason, like when a life-size Celine Dion cutout goes missing and later reappears. A cast of unpredictable characters played by the likes of LaKeith Stanfield, Kate McKinnon and Geena Davis all cycle through. \u201cThe Wrong Girls\u201d comes to have its own wayward sense of internal logic, navigating off a slightly woozy compass.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs dumb and playful and crazy as it is, it has amazing structure,\u201d says Shawkat of the story, which lured her both as a comedy and as something more sophisticated. \u201cAnd that\u2019s actually really hard to do and connect the tissue of all of it and have emotional stakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Stewart is perhaps more publicly known as a dog person, frequently photographed walking the mixed-breed rescue she has had for some 13 years (\u201cI don\u2019t want to get weird in the L.A. Times but she\u2019s my everything \u2014 she\u2019s my soulmate\u201d) she also has a cat named Cozy she is very close with.<\/p>\n

And \u201cThe Wrong Girls\u201d is very much a cat person\u2019s movie. When Frankie and Molly begin to communicate with their cats, the felines are voiced by Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani. Meyer recalls that when she lived with McLean there was a seemingly endless cycle of cats that would stay with them for varying periods of time.<\/p>\n

For the record, Meyer considers herself both a cat and a dog person \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m just an animal dude overall,\u201d she says \u2014 but felt cats worked better for the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also feel like little aliens,\u201d says Stewart. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019re understanding really that they are interdimensional creatures. I\u2019m telling you, they\u2019re darting their eyes around the room and then they kind of know how you\u2019re feeling. I\u2019m like, \u2018You guys are truly psychedelic.\u2019 I don\u2019t think that we\u2019re living in the same dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso dog telekinesis would be really frantic,\u201d says Shawkat, who has no pets. \u201cIt would just be like, \u2018You\u2019re home! You\u2019re home!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think cats are like works of art that inspire you to be truer to yourself,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cThey\u2019re a good foil for the \u2018wrong girls\u2019 because cats are such not wrong girls. They\u2019ve got it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Three <\/p>\n

\u201cEnjoying whatever happens and being able to pick up the pieces,\u201d says Stewart of what makes a wrong girl. \u201cAnd pick them up with a kind of chill nature, like you know it\u2019s going to work out. It might take six steps versus two but you\u2019re going to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The movie has invented its own intuitive archetype, so that now they all find themselves saying, \u201cThat\u2019s so \u2018wrong girls\u2019\u201d in certain situations. Annoyances and inconveniences of varying degrees, often of one\u2019s own doing, such as getting to the airport with the wrong documents or forgetting to take out the trash for a long time, all fall under this handy new rubric.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnjoying whatever happens and being able to pick up the pieces,\u201d says Stewart of what makes a wrong girl. \u201cAnd pick them up with a kind of chill nature, like you know it\u2019s going to work out. It might take six steps versus two but you\u2019re going to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s somebody who struggles to get from point A to point B in the same normal way that another person might do it,\u201d adds Meyer. \u201cAnd maybe has more joy and more adventure in that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, they\u2019ve embraced it. Maybe the wrong girls have been the ones with the right attitude all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think of it as Chekhov\u2019s joint, just waiting there on a table to be smoked. It\u2019s the kind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[113047,279282,8688,430,156,593,25596,279283,4462,9611,64010,2560,435,111,139,69,6934,427,60050,279281],"class_list":["post-567170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alia-shawkat","tag-boyfriend-character","tag-cat","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-frankie","tag-general-life","tag-lot","tag-mclean","tag-meyer","tag-molly","tag-movie","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-stewart","tag-story","tag-weed","tag-wrong-girls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}