(L to R) Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun star in ‘Love Me’.
Opening in theaters on January 31st is post-apocalyptic romance ‘Love Me’, which was written and directed by Sam and Andy Zuchero, and stars Kristen Stewart (‘Love Lies Bleeding’) and Steven Yeun (‘Beef’).
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun about their work on ‘Love Me’, their first reaction to the screenplay, how they approached playing their unusual characters, and the difficulties of the human relationship that they form.
Related Article: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian and Rose Glass Talk ‘Love Lies Bleeding’
(L to R) Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun in Bleecker Street’s ‘Love Me’. Credit: Bleecker Street.
Moviefone: To begin with, Kristen, can you talk about your first reaction to the screenplay and Sam and Andy Zuchero’s unusual vision for this project?
Kristen Stewart: I thought it was one of the most experimental, weird, ambitious, bizarre things that I had read. I thought the endeavor was a little cuckoo because it doesn’t profess to answer any of these unanswerable existential questions, and it doesn’t. I don’t think it’s something that’s like, “Oh, this is a movie that takes place in the future and therefore has all these conclusions”. It was like an invitation to do a really elaborate acting exercise that would reveal us to ourselves and each other daily. It was a diving board. The script felt like the most confronting thing about it wasn’t its setting or its characters, it was just how unfixed identity is. It can be scary if you suddenly find yourself responsible for determining those things. It holds a mirror just like a centimeter away from your face, basically. I just also watched a short film that they made that was equally as daring and I wanted to hang out with them. I was drawn to their curiosity and their earnestness and that’s it.
A Still from ‘Love Me’. Courtesy Bleecker Street. Credit: Bleecker Street
MF: Steven, can you talk about your approach to playing these characters, both in live-action and animation, what was that process like for you?
Steven Yeun: Mine was probably a different experience in that my characters were largely reflecting off Kristen’s characters. He was wanting to be, in some ways defined by it, but then also struggled with that tension. I was following and reacting and playing that mirror consciously, in a way. So, it was fun. It was also revealing of the character’s own tension with wanting his own control or its own control. It’s an exercise in surrender and control. It’s just that tension between those two things.
A Still from ‘Love Me’. Courtesy Bleecker Street. Credit: Bleecker Street
MF: Finally, Kristen, while this is a story about two machines, they end up having a very human connection and relationship. Can you talk about that and the message of the movie?
KS: I mean, I guess instead of doing a movie where you have two isolated people that can’t be affected by affectation or own individual experiences, if you were to just all of a sudden be dropped into consciousness if you were a matured person who could potentially write the storybook of your life with an intellect that didn’t need to be acquired and that was never shaped by individual experience, is genuinely just the knowable universe, I think that immediately renders a person. Well, these people don’t exist, right? This is all a metaphor. Buoys don’t talk to satellites. I mean, they do, but not in this way. I think maybe just the opportunity to allow something that you immediately diminish as something that couldn’t be alive, you must stay open. I mean, it’s so presumptuous. It’s like you only know what’s going on within yourself. I think, playing babies in adult bodies or the idea of bodies. This was just a movie about unfixed identity, defining that weird friction and contrast between reality, what real is compared to everyone’s own unique experiences and how they differ, reality doesn’t exist. So, we all must define it for ourselves, and it just felt like a base look at that. I was down to being in a vacuous space with Steven trying to figure out what all that means.
In a story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover… Read the Plot
What is the plot of ‘Love Me’?
A post-apocalyptic romance in which a buoy (Kristen Stewart) and a satellite (Steven Yeun) meet online and fall in love after the end of human civilization.
Who is in the cast of ‘Love Me’?
- Kristen Stewart as Me / Deja
- Steven Yeun as Iam / Liam
(L to R) Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun in Bleecker Street’s ‘Love Me’. Credit: Bleecker Street.
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