06 November 2019
Newsdesk
Kristen Stewart wasn't involved in the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel because studio executives were "scared of touching" her after her affair with director Rupert Sanders.
The Twilight actress starred as Snow White alongside Chris Hemsworth as Eric the Huntsman in Sanders' directorial debut in 2012 but was noticeably absent from its 2016 sequel The Huntsman: Winter's War, which flopped at the box office.
Stewart had previously insisted that being caught kissing Sanders - who was married at the time - shortly after the first movie came out had nothing to do with Universal bosses' decision to focus on Hemsworth's character for the sequel, but she candidly confessed the fallout from the scandal was the reason during a new interview with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show.
"We lived in a different time then, you know what I mean? I feel like the s**t-shaming that went down was so absurd. And they should've put me in that movie! It would've been better. Not to be a d**k, but..." she revealed. "They didn't put me in that movie because I went through such a highly publicised scandal, and so they were like scared of touching that."
Sanders was originally down to direct the sequel, but he was subsequently replaced, and the 29-year-old insisted that they could have put their personal issues aside and worked together on the second film.
"Ugh, it wasn't that big of a deal, you know what I'm saying? The work is so much more important!" the star continued. "We could have made a great second one, and we could have done it in a functional and healthy way. We didn't ultimately do that, and that's okay 'cause I did other stuff.
"Basically, what I'm saying is, the work to me genuinely was ignored in a really sort of frivolous, silly, petty way. For a group of adult people who were supposed to be running studios and making films? Honestly, the film industry in Hollywood is so fear-based... I think they're idiots, because if you take a little risk and make something good, people will watch it and like it and pay you."
Stewart, who was forced to issue a public apology to her then-boyfriend Robert Pattinson after the pictures went public, told Variety in 2016 she skipped the sequel because none of the scripts were good and was offered a cameo but turned it down.
"It wasn't a situation where I got kicked off a movie because I got in trouble," she said. "We had been in talks months after that about making something work, and it never came together."
