LOS ANGELES – It has been a tumultuous few months for Kristen Stewart – both personally and professionally – but as the final installment of “Twilight” comes to a close, the 22-year-old is putting all the controversy behind her and looking forward to a future of new movie roles.
“I saw the movie the other day – Bill (Condon, director) closes it in a way that does twist the knife for anyone that doesn’t want it to be over, and I lost it,” she told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column.
But Stewart said she is excited to break away from her “Twilight” role and explore new movie projects now that the series is ending.
“Hopefully my fan base doesn’t lock me into ‘Twilight,’ [but] you lose yourself. You should do things for you, and I have been really lucky to have things that really rock me and really move me falling into my lap,” she continued. “It is just nuts to have that weight lifted and to be able to look back and be so proud of everyone. You wonder while in the midst of it, how you are going to feel after. I feel incredibly light, I guess free.”
Despite Stewart’s new-found sense of freedom from her Bella Swan character, she couldn’t resist taking a few mementos from the set.
“I took the rings,” she said. “I took my wedding ring and the moon ring that Bella wears.”
The actress’s on-screen, and sometimes off-screen, love interest Robert Pattinson, 26, is also feeling sentimental now that the curtain has been pulled on the franchise that made him an international heartthrob.
“It is very strange. It is going to be very strange to not have that security blanket – I basically reset. I do another movie and then go and do another ‘Twilight,’ and it just starts again,” he told us. “I can feel my life speeding up, and it is strange because I have signed on to a bunch of movies over the last year. I’m basically doing eight movies in a row next year. Everything feels like it is intensifying, speeding up.”
Pattinson added he feels his next projects are critical to help him break free of his Edward Cullen character.
“When you are competing with people at the beginning you are thinking ‘I am not getting any parts because I am not famous,’ but as soon as you get famous you’re like, ‘they think I am someone else, they think I am the guy from Twilight’ and that is why I am not getting anything,” Pattinson lamented. “I really feel like every decision I make now is who I am going to be – whereas working, doing ‘Twilight’ movies it feels like it is so big it just moves pretty slowly, like I have been stuck at 21 or 22.”
And co-star Taylor Lautner is still pinching himself over his rise to fame and the success of the film franchise. He said he has one regret from the filming experience:
“[The production team] did ask if I wanted to wig,” he quipped. “I was like, ‘no get that away from me!’ but now I am kind of wishing I would have taken the wig.”
“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part Two” opens in theaters Nov. 16.