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1. Kristen Jaymes Stewart was born into showbiz on 9 April, 1990, in Los Angeles to father John, a stage manager and TV producer, and an Australian mother who works as a script supervisor.
2. Her dad hangs out with Ryan Seacrest! They work together on his show "On-Air with Ryan Seacrest" which featured interviews with Hollywood stars.
3. Her mother is also branching out into movie directing. Her first film K-11 is due for release later this year and stars her daughter in the lead role – naturally.
4. She has an older brother Cameron, as well as two younger adopted brothers. They live with her parents in LA, though Kristen has since bought her own house nearby.
5. She has three dogs: Oz, a border collie mix, Jack and Lily who are mutts. She also has a cat named Jella.
6. Kristen is a dropout! She only attended school until the seventh grade before her work commitments got in the way. She continued with her schooling through correspondence and has completed high school.
7. Her talent was shining through even while performing in her school's Christmas play. An agent spotted her and signed her at age 8.
8. Small film roles in The Thirteenth Year and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas followed. A girl's gotta start somewhere, right?
9. As she grew up, so did the movie role. One of her first big parts was in the ensemble indie drama The Safety of Objects, opposite Glenn Close, Patricia Clarkson and Timothy Olyphant. In it she played a tomboy whose neighbour mistakes her for his dead brother.
10. Probably her biggest pre-Twilight role was as Jodie Foster's diabetic daughter in the nail-biting thriller Panic Room. The movie co-starred Forrest Whitaker and Jared Leto.
11. Kristen wasn’t the first choice to play Sarah Altman in Panic Room. She replaced Heroes hottie Hayden Panettiere at the last minute.
12. While the films themselves weren’t what you'd call blockbusters, Kristen continued to find work in small horror films (Cold Creek Manor, The Messengers), and throwaway kids adventure movies such as Zathura and Catch That Kid.
13. She finally caught the eye of Sean Penn who cast her in Into the Wild as Tracey, the teenage hippie who develops a crush on young adventurer Christopher McCandless, played by Emile Hirsch. She received rave reviews for her performance but it was just a pre-cursor to the type of attention she'd later receive.
14. In late 2007, Summit Entertainment announced that Kristen was cast as Bella Swan in the movie adaptations of Stephenie Meyers' best-selling series of books about a young girl who falls in love with a hundred-year-old vampire.
15. The first Twilight movie started production soon after and was released in November 2008. To date it has grossed nearly $400-million.
16. Kristen has to wear brown contacts when playing Bella as her own eyes are naturally green.
17. Her onscreen chemistry with her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, who plays Bella's vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen, has generated countless rumours of an off-screen romance. Those two aren’t fooling anyone.
18. Since then, reports of Kristen and Robert's relationship have been a constant feature in tabloids, with the press even assigning them a couple nickname: Robsten (Robert + Kristen).
19. The first sign that Robsten were an item came when Kristen broke up with her longtime boyfriend Michael Angarano in early 2009, just as Twilight was going supernova around the world.
20. Kristen hasn’t taken to her constant tabloid presence very well. She recently described paparazzi photos of herself to images of a woman being raped. She got into a bit of trouble for it and later apologized saying, "I really made an enormous mistake – clearly and obviously." But, wait! That's not all: "I've made stupid remarks before," she added, "and I've always reasoned: 'Whatever. They can think what they want.'" So don't mistake that social awkwardness for a thin skin…
21. In 2009 she was nominated for the Bafta Rising Star Award and won in a popular vote. Kristen appeared uncomfortable in her acceptance speech and credited the masses of Twilight fans (or Twihards, as they like to be called) for ensuring that she won.
22. Earlier this year she played legendary rocker Joan Jett alongside her Twilight Saga co-star Dakota Fanning, who played Cheri Currie, in a biopic called The Runaways (in SA cinemas from 9 July). Both Kristen and Dakota recorded their own vocals for the movie.
23. After the release of Twilight: New Moon, Kristen was called to serve on a Los Angeles jury. The case proceedings took three days and ended with the jury finding the defendant not guilty.
24. So how does Kristen rate the Twilight novels? Not very highly if her own reading tastes are anything to go by. Some of her favourite writers are Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and she's said that her favourite books growing up were "The Stranger" by Albert Camus and "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. Smart girl.
* Bonus fact: Kristen has been hotly tipped to take over Angelina Jolie's role in Wanted 2, due to be released in 2011. Kristen has said she's up for it, as long as the sequel is as good as the first movie in which Angelina and James McAvoy played gravity-defying assassins.
