Kristen Stewart

LOS ANGELES: Kristen Stewart strides into the room in a power pantsuit and high-heeled pumps.

Within minutes, the actress kicks off her heels and sits cross-legged on her chair, getting comfortable to talk about the good moment in her career, a very different time from her blockbuster “Twilight” years.

Stewart has earned acclaim for her supporting roles in two art-house films: as the daughter of a woman (Julianne Moore) suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice,” opening in Los Angeles and New York this weekend; and the assistant to an aging movie star (Juliette Binoche) in “Clouds of Sils Maria,” a Cannes Film Festival favorite out in US theaters this spring.

“I am thrilled. I love movies. I don’t have those nagging, regretful feelings about either of them,” Stewart said.

“It is a miracle,” she added. “When the stars align and you are allowed to feel that way, it is why movies are made. It is why they affect people.”

Critics have taken note of what the former child actress and teen phenomenon is showing the world at 24 years of age. Variety’s Peter Debruge called her “the most compellingly watchable American actress of her generation” and A.O. Scott at the New York Times said her more recent roles “should help re-establish her as an insightful and unpredictable talent.”

Raised in Los Angeles by parents who work in film and television, Stewart “idolizes this industry” and would love to do big franchise movies again and even be a Marvel superhero.

People in the industry have pushed her to go find stories she wants to do and start a production company to have more power over her roles. But she’s not ready for that yet.

“I like being hired,” she said. “I like the feeling of having no control over something.”

Looking back at her years as Bella, the lovestruck teenager entangled in a forbidden romance with a vampire in the “Twilight” movies, Stewart is nostalgic.

“I felt into it. I loved it,” she said, adding, “I got into that for absolutely the right reasons. There was never any regret.”

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